


In The Shadow of Your Light

by NoHappyEnding



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:23:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8846734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoHappyEnding/pseuds/NoHappyEnding
Summary: Promises are made to be broken and Chanyeol is stuck in the part of their lives that Baekhyun left behind.





	

The notes meander, high and lows wavering in the air and bouncing around with a soft silvery lull. It’s tranquil and unbothered, a generous calm that brushes over the heart and comforts, not overwhelming beautiful or deeply dark. It’s just enough to lift the soul and wrap happiness around one’s senses. 

The musician has his eyes closed. His breathing is soft and his hand move with well-versed gentleness, thin fingers barely brushing the keys to get them to omit the pretty sounds. The theatre is empty and he is his only spectator, him and his blank thoughts. 

The air is humid and the lights are dim, a single stage light sparkling over him and covering the rest of the hall in silhouettes.  Tonight there is nothing on his mind. Tonight he is not the supernova whose galaxy is the stage and neither is he the man with the chaotic storm in his mind. Tonight, he simply is. 

He plays, unhurried. His heart knows the keys and there is no need for him to see where his fingers are going. And though his most compelling feat is his emotions and the haunting sentiment he usually plays with is what captures people and ensnares them in the magic of his music, he plays without emotion tonight. And he is still beautiful. 

“My Light.” 

Baekhyun does not know why he suddenly imagines the voice. He almost flinches and closes his eyes harder but he tells himself not to. He tells himself to keep calm and to keep playing. He does not want to deal with these memories tonight, even if they are heavy in his chest and sound real to his ears. The voice had almost been tangible, like a caress on his skin and with the all-encompassing compassion that accompanied the voice of the one that used to call him that. 

Soon, his breathing that had slightly accelerated returns to normal. He ignores the dampness that began to form in his palms and continues on playing, the notes chasing away the ghostly voices in his mind. He is losing himself once more in stark tranquillity when he hears it again. It is louder this time, closer and more distinct. His hand falters and the sound of the note going awry is jarring, Baekhyun’s hand is pressing into the keys. The harmony is broken and the notes are sharp and incongruous. 

_ No _ , he tells himself. 

_ No, it’s in your mind.  _

He takes a deep breath, one, two, feels the air go down his trachea and fill his lungs. His heartbeat is too fast and he counts in his head to steady it, one, two, one, two, until it stabilizes. He knows this feeling, he’s familiar with it and he despises it and he despises himself when he feels this way. There is a bead of sweat rolling from his temple, down his face and he can feel the dampness at the nape of his neck as his body flushes hot and cold. He ignores it. 

And when he is calm again, he resumes playing.  

“My Light.” 

This time his eyes fly open because the voice is not in his head and it’s not an empty echo of his memories in his skull. This time, the voice is right in his ear and the mouth is pressed to his lobe and the warmth is radiating to him from behind. 

“My Light.” 

Arms wrap around him and he is paralyzed. The warmth is a foreign familiarity and the feel of the body behind him is achingly real, not just the figment of his yearning imagination or mummified memories. And when the voice calls out to him again, a pleasant husky baritone, he wonders if the day has finally come. The day that he loses his sanity. 

And if this is madness, can he not indulge? He closes his eyes and leans back. It feels so good, like homecoming after a battering storm and tears prick at his eyes because he wants this to be real, so badly that it hurts but he knows that sanity will come for him soon, drag him down like gravity and keep him tied down with sandbags that are logic and reality. 

Baekhyun’s body is rigid as he is turned around, his body allowing to be turned but completely expecting the emptiness that will greet him once he turns.  

But his heart leaps and it feels like icy hands are wrapping around his throat and choking him with emotions when he turns around and he is  _ not _ greeted by air. Every second that passes ties the knot of doubt that he has lost it tighter, that he has completely transcended into pure insanity.  Because he is not greeted by emptiness or air. Instead, there is  _ him _ and there is his smile and his face and his towering body. 

“C-Chanyeol?” Baekhyun chokes, his face contorting with confusion and the desperate plea is written all over his face.  _ Tell me you’re not real.  _

“Baekhyun. My Light.” Chanyeol smiles softly and Baekhyun immediately notices the difference. This is not the Chanyeol living in his mind. The immortal picture of Chanyeol in the deepest part of his heart and his mind does not look like this. There are some things missing and some things Baekhyun does not remember seeing, memorizing. 

The tall one is hunched down, trying to make himself as level as he can with the short pianist but even then he towers over Baekhyun and the smaller one’s heart clenches with the familiarity of being overwhelmed by Chanyeol’s presence. 

His heart is beating abnormally fast and it is like time has slowed down, the clock usually ticking in his head has stopped. He does not know what to do. He does not know what to say. How does one return to a chapter they know to have ended, however unsatisfyingly inconclusive the chapter may have been? After all the years that have passed, Baekhyun has still not yet stopped pondering over that book but retrieving it from the dusty shelf is a different story. How does he begin, what does he say? 

He thinks yearning has driven him to the edge and the darkened thorny corners of his heart has spewed into his head and the result is standing in front of him, looking like the love he had lost. 

But Chanyeol pulling him up feels real, Chanyeol’s stupid grin looks so familiar it nullifies every feature that has changed, the essential is still the same and Chanyeol’s arms wrapping around him, his scent is different but the safety he feels is like an old friend, embracing him and welcoming him home. 

“I missed you.” Chanyeol says and Baekhyun’s heart is aching because his voice sounds like home too. The way Chanyeol says it, it’s like they have been apart for a little while, as though Chanyeol went on a walk and now he is back when the reality is that they both went on journeys, miles in the opposite direction. But it seems like they have circled back. To each other. 

“I missed you too.” Baekhyun whispers. He is still unsure about this reality. But he would like to stay, if Chanyeol exists in this madness, he thinks, selfishly, that he would like to stay. He does not want to leave, ever. 

“I missed you more.” Chanyeol murmurs. He presses Baekhyun closer to his chest, clutching him tight like he fears leaving a margin of space between them would make Baekhyun disappear and this is when Baekhyun realizes; Chanyeol is scared too. He is unsure too. He is overwhelmed too. And reality crashes back over Baekhyun. This is not insanity. 

When Chanyeol pulls back, he does not completely let go of Baekhyun. His hands remain on the shorter one’s shoulder and he is still smiling at Baekhyun. In this light, Baekhyun thinks he spots a few grey hairs in Chanyeol’s hair and a few wrinkles but he brushes this observation off because it has been twenty years since they last saw each other not forty and Chanyeol cannot already have wrinkles and grey hairs. 

“My Light, you look well. You’ve been eating, right?” 

Baekhyun cannot reply because there is a storm swirling inside his heart. A tsunami of memories wash over him and he is grappling with the tears that threaten to fall. 

He is eight again when Chanyeol offers him an orange and tells him “You look really small, do you eat? Here, have this.” 

He is thirteen again when Chanyeol asks “My Light, have you eaten?” the nickname not failing to make Baekhyun’s insides churn pleasantly at that tender age. 

He is fifteen as he struggles with his image, refusing to eat and Chanyeol is standing hunched in the doorway, already lanky; “My Light, have you eaten?” 

Baekhyun is eighteen and he is running himself to the bone for finals and Chanyeol sets a plate on his desk, hugging him from behind even though he is all of five feet eleven, Baekhyun is sitting down and Chanyeol says softly “My Light, you have not eaten.” 

Chanyeol is even taller now, Baekhyun thinks. They were eighteen when Chanyeol had last worried over Baekhyun’s nutrition and here they are, twenty years later. 

“C-Chanyeol…” Baekhyun begins, he does not know what he is asking but he knows it’s a question. His eyes search the taller one’s. He is lost. 

“It’s okay Baekkie.” Chanyeol has the answers, even now. They are written in his eyes and Baekhyun does not know what they spell but he feels them in his heart when he reads them off Chanyeol’s eyes. This has not changed. Though it feels like everything is upside down, Chanyeol’s eyes are still his blanket of warmth and his embrace is his safe haven. 

“Let’s go for a walk, my Light.” Chanyeol says softly, tender hand on Baekhyun’s cheek. At the back of his mind, there are bells, tingling in warning, telling him this is wrong. But he does not want to listen. 

  
  


The Musician says nothing as the taller one takes his hand. The weight is a forgotten familiarity and Baekhyun finds himself clutching it tight. The night is quiet as they walk down. It is cold and their breath fogs before them.  

Baekhyun’s throat itches. There are questions that want to tumble from his mouth, one after the other. Chanyeol squeezes his hand, again and again and perhaps he can feel Baekhyun’s restlessness. Perhaps he just wants to remind Baekhyun that he is real because this still feels like a dream, there is a haze clothing his conscious and it is all surreal. 

There is a hushed bustle, the last cars speeding down the empty streets, tired, cold citizens making their way home as swiftly as possible, street lights reflecting off the glass panes of closed shops and parked cars. They are walking slowly. 

“Do you remember how we used to spend every December night?” 

“You mean how we almost got hyperthermia every night?” Baekhyun laughs. He does not know if it sounds bitter or reminiscent. Bitterly reminiscent. But when he looks up at Chanyeol, Chanyeol is grinning at him, the same stupid grin he wore twenty years ago, twenty five years ago when they went on their maniacal magical winter rendezvous. Baekhyun is teleported to that time and he is back on the narrow streets of their home town. He is back at the top of the hill where their parents had forbidden them from but they always sneak to this spot anyway because it is steep and there is a lot of snow and it is perfect for sledding. Chanyeol is behind him and he is sitting on the red plastic sled his mother stowed away in the garage. Chanyeol pushes him forward, setting the sled into motion and then he quickly jumps on, straddling him from behind. His arms wrap around Baekhyun and the sled gains momentum. 

He is flying. They are flying. 

His laughter cuts into the night and Chanyeol clings to him screaming, “Baekhyun, my Light! My Love!” and Baekhyun laughs harder and pushes back into Chanyeol, perfectly overwhelmed in his embrace. 

“You  _ do _ remember.” Chanyeol is still grinning at him and Baekhyun is taken out of his reverie. Chanyeol’s thumb is on his cheek and it is wiping liquid from Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun looks up, thinking it has begun to rain but the sky is dry, it is his eyes that are wet. 

“Don’t cry Baekhyunnie,” Chanyeol says, his thumb is still wiping the tears away, his hands cupping Baekhyun’s cold cheeks. Chanyeol is as warm as Baekhyun remembers. Warmer than Baekhyun, not just his body but at heart too. 

“It’s okay my Light, we can remake all those memories and new ones too.” Chanyeol says earnestly, his eyes as innocent and brimming with love as they used to be. The taller one pulls him close and hugs him again, it is like he cannot get enough. Baekhyun understands, his mind is urging him to cling onto Chanyeol with all his limbs, cement them together at the seams and never let him go again. 

“It’s getting late and cold. You should go home and get warm.” Chanyeol murmurs in Baekhyun’s ear, stroking the shorter one’s hair and his grip is so tight on Baekhyun, contrasting his words as it seems he is not willing to let Baekhyun go anytime soon. 

“Missed you.” Baekhyun chokes quietly and to his horror, his eyes are once again wet. He tries to force down the emotions welling up his throat but it is too difficult and Baekhyun’s shoulders are shaking. Chanyeol holds him, humming an old melody Baekhyun recognizes immediately. He sways them from side to side, on the empty street, taking Baekhyun back into a time when the world had colours and it seemed Chanyeol would always be Baekhyun’s rainbow. But Life has its cruel leeching iron grip in everything and Baekhyun’s world lost colour.

_ the light in my heart _

_ the fire of my soul _

_ the light in my heart _

_ the fire of my soul  _

Chanyeol’s baritone fades into the night but he continues to hum. Baekhyun feels like this is the last time he will see Chanyeol and desperation seeps thick into bones again. He does not want to let go of his heart’s deepest desire yet. 

“We’ll see each other again, my Light. I promise.” Chanyeol says and he is the one with the strength to pull back. The last promise they made to each other last is distinct in Baekhyun’s head and Baekhyun can see that Chanyeol remembers too. And like a stream following its ancient chiselled path, Baekhyun automatically says the last thing he had said to Chanyeol all those years ago. 

“I’ll wait.” 

A chaste kiss is pressed on his forehead and he witnesses Chanyeol’s back, walking away. He stands still for several more heartbeats. He wonders vaguely if he is seeing ghosts and if Chanyeol’s body will turn transparent as he walks further away. Chanyeol does not. 

It is only when Chanyeol is completely out of sight, having turned a corner, that Baekhyun wonders how Chanyeol found him in the first place. A slight chill runs down his back. And then he remembers his husband. 

  
  


There is guilt churning Baekhyun's stomach and as he swallows hard, he thinks the putrid taste is on his tongue too. He is disgusted with himself. It was as though Yixing did not exist, the moment Chanyeol appeared. 

It has been twenty long years since Chanyeol ceased to be a part of his life. And yet the moment he comes back, he is Baekhyun's Sun and Moon and Stars, his solar system. Baekhyun's mind and heart revolves around Chanyeol's. And the shame and guilt and the longing tear Baekhyun's insides. He is a vortex, set into motion by the phantom that appeared from his past and once again, he is deteriorating. 

He knows he should get moving, go home to his husband. But he is not ready to face Yixing. He cannot bear Yixing’s kind eyes, he cannot accept the love he reads there every moment.  He is still overwhelmed by Chanyeol's sudden reappearance in his life. He feels as though he has been thrown out of his orbit, left wandering in space. That, and he is a coward. 

There had been days when he thought he would never get over Chanyeol. Chanyeol was his heart, his deepest roots. And he had suddenly been ripped from his life, leaving Baekhyun a lost branch in a chaotic merciless whirlwind. He never expected to smile or even see the sun again. It had taken him long, too long, to feel human again. Yixing had come and grounded him, steadied him. But he could not sprout new roots. 

Chanyeol is back. And Baekhyun feels like he has been tossed into that vicious whirlwind again. 

He turns the opposite direction Chanyeol had gone down, burying his hands in his pocket. It is several degrees colder but he welcomes the chill. 

He can almost imagine Yixing sprawled on the couch, quilt lying across his legs but most of it pooling on the floor due to his fitful slumber. Baekhyun smiles fondly. Yixing says he does not worry when Baekhyun stays late in the theatre but Baekhyun knows otherwise. Yixing would not wait until Baekhyun was home safely and wrapped in his arms if he were not worried. 

It is, however, not the same type of worry he had eighteen or so years ago. When they had met, Baekhyun was a glass shell that had been poorly pieced back together, sharp shards edging out and his husband had been the only one valiant enough to brave getting nicked to prevent him from shattering again, irrevocably. That had been a frantic kind of worry, Yixing trying his best to keep Baekhyun enclosed in his cocoon of care, affection and warmth. Somehow, it has been enough to meld him into a mosaic resembling sanity. 

Baekhyun wanders, though he is aware of the night creeping along. It had been late when he had arrived at the theatre to play, he can only imagine what time it is now. Not only is husband waiting but he also has to attend meetings and start preparations early tomorrow for his concert. He wants to think about his concert, how much preparation he is going to put in, the stage decorations that he wants. But he is still shaken and his mind keeps circumvolving back to Chanyeol.

So he keeps wandering and lets the night witness his sighs. 

His footsteps are near silent on the gravelly ground but the beating in his heavy hollow chest is echoing in his mind, bringing him back to memories he thought he wrapped in an impenetrable foil. A soft breeze ruffles his clothes, the scarf wrapped around his neck, his long coat and hair, a caress of the night and a drop of water hits his nose. 

 

_ “Let’s go home, Baekkie!” A small chubby hand tries to take away the plastic mini shovel in Baekhyun’s as the first patter of rain hits the ground, the obsidian sky in turmoil letting its flood gates pour.  _

_ “No! Yeol – “ Baekhyun does not get to finish his sentence, a deep rumble of thunder claps the skies.  _

_ “It’s going to storm, little Light, let’s go!” Chanyeol urges Baekhyun, trying to put their buckets and shovels together. Baekhyun allows Chanyeol to heave him up, hands tightly clasped. They run, the damp sand claiming the spaces between their toes as they run as fast as two chubby eight-year-olds can run.  _

_ “Baekkie, are you crying?” Chanyeol stops instantly, hearing the soft sniffles of the boy he is pulling along. Baekhyun slams into Chanyeol, they had stopped abruptly. They tumble to the ground, Baekhyun on top of Chanyeol. Chanyeol sees the teary eyes and rosy cheeks, Baekhyun’s lower lip wobbling.  _

_ “I-I want to make one m-more castle Y-Yeol.” Baekhyun says, his voice brittle as he hides his face in Chanyeol’s soft chest. Chanyeol lets go of the beach toys in his hand and wraps it around the miniature puppy on his chest.  _

_ “Okay Baekkie, don’t cry. We’ll make one more castle.” Chanyeol’s voice comes out muffled as he speaks against Baekhyun’s cottony crown of hair.  _

_ “R-really?” Baekhyun hiccups, raising his head, glassy eyes now sparkling with happiness.  _

_ “Hmm. But quick, or Mama will get angry if we get wet.” Chanyeol smiles back, his Baekkie’s eyes are shining and he feels happy too.  _

_ Chanyeol sits beside Baekhyun as the smaller one makes his sandcastle exuberantly, chatting and giggly while filling his buckets, temporarily forgetting about the storm that will soon come to demolish it.  _

 

The sob tears out of Baekhyun’s chest. Choked. He holds his hand to his mouth, trying to hold back the broken sounds that want to rip out of his mouth. But he can’t – he can’t.  There is pain living inside him and he is writhing, the memory has opened his flood gates and he cannot hold this liquid agony back. He collapses against a wall, the rain falling steadily. His back is against the wall, his knees pulled up to his chest. He cannot see anything, the rain is blinding him. He tries to erase the memory from his mind but he can see so clearly, a tape playing before his eyes, young Chanyeol’s eyes sparkling as he watches him build a sandcastle, even though it is already raining and the sand is not holding together properly. 

He doesn’t know if the wetness on his cheeks are tears or rain but the terrible guttural sounds are definitely sourcing from his chest. He is shaking but it’s not from the zephyr picking up.

And in the din of the turmoil inside him, he feels, he hears his phone ring. His fogged mind tells him to let it keep ringing, let it soundtrack his misery. But he knows who is calling and he selfishly needs the comfort, he wants Yixing, he needs Yixing. He takes it out of his pocket with shaking hands, he feels so cold. 

“Baekhyun,” his husband says, his voice husky and thick with sleep. Baekhyun shuts his eyes, allowing Yixing’s voice to sink into his mind. 

“Baekhyun?” Yixing says again when Baekhyun does not reply. Baekhyun cannot reply, there are phantoms hands wrapping around his throat, strangling him. 

“Where are you?” Yixing sounds alert now, alarm ringing in his question and Baekhyun can almost envision his husband stumbling over the quilt, scrambling to his feet. 

“F-Fine Xing-ah. I-It’s just raining.” Baekhyun stutters the lie, trying to make himself sounds stable, trying to find the pieces, pull his scattered self together. 

“Are you sure? Darling, where are you?” Yixing does not believe him. Baekhyun hears the jingling of keys and he knows Yixing is making his way to the garage, his car. 

Baekhyun tells him where he is. 

 

When Baekhyun plays again that night, at the grand piano claiming the centre of their music room, it sounds much different. The notes are not serene, they are not tranquil. They are not poignant and compelling as is Baekhyun’s forte. They are something Baekhyun has not sounded for a long while, they are something Yixing thought his husband would never be again. They are broken. 

  
  


~

 

“Good morning Min hyung!” Baekhyun shouts to the man sitting at the desk as he climbs up the last steps, the basket grasped in his hands bouncing against his thighs. He walks gaily to the front desk and peers over the counter at his husband’s secretary. Minseok peers back from over his round glasses perched on his nose, giving the musician a gummy smile. 

“Well then, what do you have today?” Minseok holds out an expectant hand, waiting for whatever confectionary Baekhyun has brought to shower on the staff. 

“It’s Halloween, Min hyung!” Baekhyun smiles and lifts the basket over the counter and places it in front of Minseok to pick whichever toffee apple he desires. Minseok lights up, more than he already had, and rubs his hands together, scanning the sweet scented, glazed, glistening treats. 

“There’s still a week left, Baekhyun. Did you make them?” Minseok asks as his hand hovers over each stick of apple, a serious dilemma on which of the saliva inducing toffee apples he should choose. He gives up and leans back in his chair, gesturing at Baekhyun to pick for him. 

“No, Yan-jie made them. The twins had a recital yesterday and she made it for everyone who performed.” Baekhyun informs the secretary, picking out a half chocolate glazed and half sprinkled toffee apple and hands it to Minseok with a wide smile. 

“Ah. Send her my love!” Minseok yelled after Baekhyun as the musician picked up his basket and waved, walking to the great doors of his husband’s office. 

 

“Baekhyun,” Yixing looks up from his sturdy mahogany desk as his petit husband enters, putting down his pen. The traffic and city lazes behind him, behind the ceiling-to-floor windows and the horizon seems closer from this distance. It is barely noon and the glaring rays of the sun carry no significant heat as they shine into the room. 

“Good morning Yixing-ah.” Baekhyun smiles cheerfully, placing the basket on the edge of the desk and walking around to his husband. Yixing pushes back his desk from his desk just as Baekhyun sets himself down on his lap. The petit one wraps his arms around his husband’s neck and places a sweet, loud, wet kiss on the warm cheeks, lingering his lips there. 

“Baekhyun,” Yixing laughs, pulling away from Baekhyun’s cheeky kiss only to lean up and captures his husband’s lips in his. Baekhyun pushes himself closer to his husband, swinging his legs around to wrap around Yixing’s waist and cups his husband’s cheeks. Yixing is surprised but he does not break the kiss, he allows Baekhyun to guide their kiss deeper but it remains sweet. Baekhyun is kissing his husband gently, filling himself with the taste of him. 

There is a croaky whisper creeping along the edge of his conscious asking him which taste he is trying to override, asking which mouth he is trying to forget. He ignores it and kisses his husband harder. 

“Wow.” Yixing says, once his petit husband allows him to breathe again, “Did you really miss me that much?” 

“Yes, Xing-ah. You’d already left when I woke up.” Baekhyun pouts sadly at his husband, hands going up to the collar of his shirt and straightening the invisible crease. 

“You didn’t sleep till four, Baekhyun-ah. You need to rest.” Yixing’s eyes are swimming with the concern he is holding back from voicing. Baekhyun stares into his husband’s warm vivid eyes, roasted coffee beans and maple syrup swirling together with that hint of emotion that always cinches Baekhyun’s stomach pleasantly and makes him want to curl into his husband. 

His resolve strengthens, seeing the worry and love for him that lie in his husband’s eyes. He cannot allow Yixing to worry. He cannot allow Yixing to worry over him like he had, all those years ago when they first met. He cannot allow Yixing to even get the sense that he is remotely back in that frighteningly fragile and calamitous headspace. He cannot allow all the years and endeavour they put into healing him crumble, just like that, just with Chanyeol appearing and Baekhyun disintegrating into scree. Last night was a fluke; his break down was a fluke. The emotions and the memories – they had all been a prodigious wave crashing over him and temporarily drowning him. But he is on shore again. He had been weakened by surprise. He will not allow himself to be that weak again. 

By the time Yixing had found him, soaked and shivering, Baekhyun had made up his mind and had shaken off the dazed stupor Chanyeol’s reappearance had thrown him into. He smiled when Yixing pulled up on the street next to him. He smiled as Yixing held his cold hand in the car. He smiled when Yixing invited him to bed – but declined – and went to play out the wretchedness inside him. He smiled bitterly, the last moments before he fell asleep on the keys and he smiled when his husband picked up his slumbering body up and tucked them both into their bed. 

“I’m fine Yixing, don’t worry. I just needed to play last night. Don’t worry about that, okay?” Baekhyun soothes his hand over Yixing’s cheek, a coil of self-hatred tightening in his stomach as he lies to his husband as he fills his eyes with as much honesty a liar can, urging his husband to believe him. 

“We have a meeting today, right?” Baekhyun swiftly swerves onto another topic before Yixing can open his mouth to argue. Yixing looks like he wants to pursue the topic but he closes his mouth at last, sighing, and nods. 

“Great. I’ll be back to talk to you about it, I just need to finish giving those out.” Baekhyun gestures to the general direction of the basket of confectionary without turning around, giving Yixing’s lips one last peck. He hops off his husband’s lap and pats his cheek before going to pick up the basket. 

“Wait Baekhyun-ah, I forgot to tell you, I hired a new chef yesterday!” Yixing exclaims and laughs when his husband’s eyes widen. 

“Really? Already? Is Soo gone?” Baekhyun’s expression turns doleful and puts the basket back down, dismayed at the thought that his favourite cook and friend left without biding him farewell. 

“No, Kyungsoo is still here. I hired the other cook so he could show him the ropes before he leaves, ease him into it. And we’re still throwing that party for Kyungsoo so don’t worry, darling.” Yixing reassures Baekhyun. 

“Oh, thank God! Thanks for telling me Yixing-ah, I’ll go and greet our new staff now.” Baekhyun sighs dramatically in relief, almost staggering back. His husband chuckles and shoos him out of his office, ordering him to return shortly so they could plan what to discuss during the meeting with Baekhyun’s touring team and set him into the motions of preparations for his short national tour.  

 

~

 

The kitchen is noisy when Baekhyun enters. He is stilled by surprise, wondering why he can't hear the soft hum of the coffee machine brew as Kyungsoo adds his own melody under his breath while he rearranges pots and pans and utensils that don't really need any reconfiguration. And then he realizes it isn't as early as he usually goes to check up on and greet Kyungsoo, he has come in much later than he usually does and by now all the day staff are in. It is almost lunch time and the hubbub is at its prime. Regardless, he finds Kyungsoo within a second, zipping around from station to station, instructing the other chefs, giving orders and adding spices to brewing pots as he passes by, a captain in the stormy ocean that is his kitchen, his domain. The company cafeteria is notorious for its food, as good as any luxurious restaurant, under the diligent grasp of Chef Do Kyungsoo. Despite the fact that Kyungsoo is at a chopping board and he is slicing onions at a supersonic speed, Baekhyun braves putting his arms around his friend's shoulders and places a sloppy kiss on his cheek. 

"Don't you need those pretty hands or are you looking for a change of career?" Kyungsoo shouts over his shoulder but Baekhyun can hear the smile in his voice as he continues chopping, shrugging off the pianist. 

"Only if that career includes you personally feeding me everything you ever cook." Baekhyun smiles sweetly, returning his arms around Kyungsoo's shoulders. The basket is set by their feet and Baekhyun manoeuvres Kyungsoo away from it, preventing him from squishing all the toffee apples his sister-in-law diligently made and shared. 

"Careful there. Mr. Zhang might think you're having an affair with me." Kyungsoo says as he finally turns around, having finished chopping the onions, and wipes his hands on the apron that was once white but is now a tie dye of food stains. 

"I don't think Yixing would mind." Baekhyun says cheekily.

"But Jongin would. What do you want from my kitchen?" Kyungsoo pushes Baekhyun out of the way of Junmyeon, the vice head chef, who will take Kyungsoo’s position once he leaves, who is pushing a trolley of food and motions for him to follow as he goes to another station to prepare ingredients for a dish. 

"Excuse you, your kitchen is blessed to have the one and only Baekhyun visiting. And I guess you don't want what Yan-jie made then." Baekhyun shrugs as he swings the basket in his hand and makes to turn around. Kyungsoo's hand is on his arm before he fully pivots and the pianist grins knowingly. 

"Let me have a look then." Kyungsoo folds his arms and taps a foot, waiting for the short raven haired musician to show him his sister-in-law's latest creation. Kyungsoo has always been curious about Yan's cooking and baking, claiming her work is art and that he can learn new techniques from her. Baekhyun can understand, Yixing's sister owns the most popular restaurant in the city. Even five star restaurants pale in comparison, her food has customers inhaling it down and strapping down for more. 

"You only get one. I'm not done giving them out." Baekhyun informs his friend as the chef's eyes light up at the sight of the glazed sweet goods. It is no secret that though Kyungsoo excels in dishes, his delight is delicacies, curtesy of his sweet tooth. 

"There's so many, stop being stingy! But how did she get the-" 

"Mr. Do sir?" A bass watery voice comes from behind Kyungsoo who is looking over the toffee apples with eager indecisive eyes. Kyungsoo does not hear but Baekhyun does. The blood freezes in his veins. An ice chill chases through his heart, through his body. The voice echoes in his ears and he is sure he has misheard or he is dreaming. After all, Kyungsoo seems to have been deaf to it. It is just a conjuring of Baekhyun's mind. 

"Mr. Do?" But the voice comes again, tentative but clearer, louder. Kyungsoo looks up. 

"Oh, Chanyeol-ssi, what can I do for you?" Kyungsoo straightens from the basket and looks at the figure behind Baekhyun, a slight warmth in his eyes. Baekhyun's being has been statued to this spot in the kitchen and he cannot turn, cannot confirm this nightmare.

“There’s a Mr. Kim outside, he says it’s important.” 

“Ah, thank you.” Kyungsoo smiles at the man behind Baekhyun. Baekhyun is gaping slightly, a barely concealed horror living on his face and the basket is slacking in his hand and titling downwards, in danger of falling just as Baekhyun is in danger of collapsing. 

“Baekhyun, have you met Chanyeol? They’re going to need an extra hand around when Junmyeon steps up, you know, fill Jongdae’s spot when he becomes vice head.” Kyungsoo explains, gesturing to the person behind Baekhyun. Baekhyun manages to shut his mouth and school his features into neutrality but he still cannot stretch his lips into the graceful smile he wears, he still cannot face what is behind his back and he is stalling and praying for miracles. 

“Baekhyun?” Kyungsoo prompts the pianist, his rounded eyes filled with an assessing curiosity. 

“Hi, Chanyeol.” Baekhyun turns around, his mouth is so dry, he feels he can barely move his tongue and his throat is itching. The words take a ludicrous amount of strength to utter and Baekhyun places the basket on the counter at his hip and braces a hand there, holding himself up as discreetly as he can. The smile on Chanyeol’s lips makes it harder for Baekhyun to breathe and the pain accompanied by Chanyeol’s smile growing wider, eyes sparkling, is an acute pang equivalent of a sledgehammer to his heart. 

“Hi Baekhyun,” Chanyeol returns happily and a memory flashes involuntarily through Baekhyun’s mind, a smaller Chanyeol, hands clasped at his back, same innocent goofy but fluttery smile, halo of fluffy curls, front teeth missing, greeting a very smaller Baekhyun as he swung to and fro on his heels. The white uniform makes his pale gold skin and his umber mane of hair peeping from under the net look stark. The snowy clothes are too loose on him and Baekhyun has the urge to tuck Chanyeol’s shirt into his pants and roll up his sleeves so he would not resemble twigs holding up an empty sack. Baekhyun’s fingers curl at his sides, swallowing down the wave of sadness the urge of the old habit brings. 

“Mr. Zhang, Chanyeol, you must address him as Mr. Zhang.” Kyungsoo chides sternly but not unkindly. 

“Mr. Zhang?” Chanyeol looks confused. Baekhyun looks down. 

“Yes Chanyeol, Mr. Zhang. You might be a fan of Baekhyun but during working hours, you’ll address him as Mr. Zhang.” Kyungsoo explains. 

“Don’t be like that Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun forces himself to laugh, “he can call me Baekhyun, it’s fine.” Baekhyun smiles through his teeth, staring pointedly at Chanyeol, hoping he’ll get the message, hoping he’ll play along. Hoping he’ll understand. Hoping he’ll forgive him. 

“But we-“ 

“I have a meeting soon, I’ll leave this basket in the kitchen so the others can have some too. It was nice meeting you Chanyeol. See you later, Soo?” Baekhyun cuts Chanyeol off, knowing from the giant’s innocently elaborate expression that Chanyeol is about to tell Kyungsoo that they already know each other. ‘Know’ feels an insufficient way to describe it. 

“Out of my kitchen then.” Kyungsoo waves Baekhyun away and the pianist summons iron strength to avoid meeting Chanyeol’s eyes one more time, to avoid wrapping himself around the giant and making sure that he is real, that his embrace is just as warm as last night’s, as it has always been. It is still overwhelming and disorienting to see Chanyeol, this has not changed since last night. The mask Baekhyun wilfully crafted is crumbling, cracks in his visage and he feels he will run back into Chanyeol’s arms if he does not leave now, damned be everything, everyone and all the reasons why he should not. 

He successfully reaches the corridor, smiling at everyone he passes and praying that they don’t see the wobble of his lips or the downward slope consternation has pulled his face into. He stops when he turns the corner, ducks into an alcove and faces the wall, breathing deeply. He feels winded. He wants to take a minute or two to compose himself, to shove this myriad of emotions deep into himself before he sees Yixing again. He will think and feel them all later but he must conceal them from his husband – and anyone else for that matter. He must fulfil the pact that he made with himself to allow his husband to keep his peace of mind. 

“Baekhyun?” 

Baekhyun near jumps out of his flesh, he is so startled. He whips around, his heart jumps and his eyes are wide, like a deer caught in headlights. He sighs, a breath of shameful relief, when he realizes that it’s Chanyeol. His shoulders sag and he looks up at the giant, heart beating wild still. 

Chanyeol is looking at him with a hesitant smile but his eyes are shining with happiness at its depth. He comes closer and lifts his arm, Baekhyun foresees what Chanyeol is about to do and he – he pushes. He shoves Chanyeol away from him, hands flat on his chest and applying force, something Baekhyun has never in his life done to Chanyeol. The hurt clouding Chanyeol’s eyes rises bile in Baekhyun’s throat. 

“W-why?” Chanyeol breathes, brittle, lifting his arms to try and hold Baekhyun again. Baekhyun side steps him and moves out of the alcove, chanting ‘Yixing’ in his head. Yixing, or his strength will crumble and ashen. 

“Don’t Chanyeol. We can’t, I’m sorry. You should…you should stay away from me.” Each word is cyanide down Baekhyun’s throat, spreading through his body and collapsing his organs. Each word is an arrow spearing into Chanyeol’s chest, making pain and confusion pallor his face. There is noise somewhere behind them, around them, but the silence between them is a loud wound as they read each other’s faces. Baekhyun wants to apologize and fall at Chanyeol’s feet, soothe away the crease between his brows but he makes apathy reign in his eyes and his face a harsh sculpture of steel. 

He has to move on. 

He  _ has _ moved on. 

He has Yixing now. 

“But my Light –“ 

“No!...No.” the forceful words jolts the hushed tones that were wrapped around them. Another slice in Baekhyun’s heart at the pained confusion on Chanyeol’s face. The manifold of expressions Chanyeol hosts are nothing short of heartbreak, Baekhyun rejecting something that had always been as natural and precious as air to them. Baekhyun walks away then.

 

~

 

The sigh leaves Baekhyun's lips in raw exhaustion, originating from the marrow of his soul and breaks the silence that has been enclosing him and Yixing in a comfortable bubble as they both worked.  

The meeting had gone on for longer than they had planned, forcing them to work through lunch. Yixing had left half way through, an apologetic grimace gracing his mien. Baekhyun understood, his husband tries his best to stay involved in Baekhyun's career more than the bare minimal of being the CEO of the company he's signed with but he has a complex dichotomy of other duties he must attend to. 

From time to time, Baekhyun wishes they are back in the early stages of his career and fame, when Yixing had been his manager. It had been only them back then in the company, Yixing who could be a star all on his own but scouting new talent for the miniature art centre he put his life and soul into building, along with what his parents could help him with. Baekhyun could recall the exact details of his first meeting with Yixing, the first of many but the most memorable and the one that lives vividly in his mind.

He had only been in the City for two months, two months of which the air he breathed was sulphur down his throat, charring his insides. And two years since he had last seen Chanyeol. They had made so many plans together, big plans, small plans and the capillaries that connected them all. Running away to the ‘Big Apple’ in their small fruit bowl, renting a place together even though they hardly had spent a night without each other since they were ten, getting into the same university that they desired and eventually making it big, together. All those plans that they were so close to grasping with both hands, were just the beginning of the future they had planned, planned to make happen in the City and Baekhyun was there, right where they thought they would be but Chanyeol was not by his side and it felt like their unfulfilled dreams were strangling him.

For two years, his life had been at a standstill. He had become less than human, less than a shell, a vessel with a faded soul. It was more than shock, more than trauma. He did not know how to live or breathe, how to continue without his heart that had been taken with Chanyeol. When he rose in the morning, he turned to his side, ready with a smile only to be greeted by his bedroom wall and not the wall of warmth that was Chanyeol.  The untouched toothbrush in the holder suddenly became so conspicuous and the tears mingled with the toothpaste as hiccupped sobs shook Baekhyun’s body. That was after the season of drought in Baekhyun’s eyes, he had not cried for months and then the onslaught came unmercifully like a typhoon. His steps on the stairs when he went down were soft, not thundering as they were when he and Chanyeol used to race down for breakfast and that itself made his body sag and feel heavy. The empty chair next to him was a gap in his universe, a hole in his side. His mother’s worry masked with a tentative smile instead of the usual exasperated delighted one augmented his misery. The piano bench felt too long and cold without his companion player by his side, the keys hostile and out of tune, the notes dreary and ominous. It felt like his whole life was being rewritten, intricate calligraphy of misery and loss, agony and disorientated disbelief. 

And then one morning, he stopped coming down stairs. It was too painful, trying to complete this routine without Chanyeol. He thought he could go through with it, he could envision Chanyeol by his side, the way he lived in his memory. But he couldn’t hold a hologram. A hologram couldn’t smile back at him. It couldn’t make him laugh. It couldn’t wrap its arm around him. It couldn’t kiss him. It couldn’t call him ‘my Light’. It couldn’t keep his heart beating. 

His parents had tried to coerce him into seeing someone, ‘to talk about things’ they had said, soft tones lulling him and sweet understanding words. When they failed to convince him, his adamant state of decline refusing to give, they had brought people in to see him. He ignored them. He waited, each second of every day was a stepping stone to the moment he would finally see Chanyeol again. In the flutter of events and confusion in his mind, he remembered the promise and despite how wrong and twisted it was, he clung to it. 

_ “We’ll see each other again, my Light. I promise.”  _

_ “I’ll wait.” _

He did. He really did. He played and he waited, hoping Chanyeol could hear his music from where he was and hurry back home. In between the keys and organs, Chanyeol was with Baekhyun and Baekhyun found the insanity inducing pane dulled there. Two years had come and gone, Baekhyun no closer to healing or moving on and that’s when his parents set a foot down. They insisted that either Baekhyun got institutionalised. Or he try to get his life back together. 

He had passed all his entrance exams, he had sat for them – with Chanyeol – before the incident. And he’d been accepted to all the universities he’d applied for – with Chanyeol – they both had. Baekhyun had even received a scholarship at The Academy of Music. But two years had gone and his slot had long been given away. He was stuck and lost, every future he thought of only contained Chanyeol but Chanyeol wasn’t coming back to him anytime soon. Chanyeol wasn’t coming back. 

Baekhyun had gone to the City, a blade in the wind, wandering. He went back to the apartment complex he and Chanyeol had looked at, the convenience store across the street where they had bought pot noodles from when they got hungry after inspecting the flat, the bench down the road they had sat on to wolf it down, and he even paid a visit to the elderly bookshop owner that had agreed to let them work part-time once they moved into the flat a few weeks on. Each step an acid burn in his mind. It was as he was walking down that memory lane that he came across the advertisement for the new arts centre. It was not a bold or conspicuous ad, it was congruous with the dingy street but it inadvertently caught Baekhyun’s eye. 

_ -Find the magic in you. All are welcome-  _

Baekhyun felt compelled. His joints were aching to play and he would not access a piano until his was transported from his parents’ house, which was not to happen for another few weeks. He just wanted to play a melody or two, practice a piece or two. And then he would get back to trying to figure out what he would do with himself, figure out what there was for him to do in the City that no longer looked like a magical snow globe but a bleak desert terrain. 

  
  


The arts centre was much smaller than he had expected. There weren’t many people around. He supposed it was because it was opened recently. The man who had led him to this music room did not look much older than he was but Baekhyun could not tell. He radiated light, ironically, and Baekhyun thought he was ageless. It was in his eyes and written on his face and he seemed to pour it out into their surroundings. He did not seem to be put off by Baekhyun’s sempiternal disconsolate expression, nor the slight glare he had acquired for the world in the past two years. Baekhyun had hardly smiled, not even a crack, for so long. But when the man smiled at him, dented cheek and delightful spark, he found the corner of his wretched lips lifting. When he played, he did not feel the pressure of the man’s gaze, rather it was a soft presence accompanying his notes that laid a path in the air, instead of the obvious expectation he felt whenever he played in the presence anyone who was not Chanyeol. The awed slack of his mouth and twinkle of excitement in his eyes seemed authentic, when Baekhyun had finished playing. 

_ “I’m Yixing.”  _

 

“I’m going to go and play for a bit, Yixing-ah. You should take a break too.” Baekhyun says as he creeps up behind his husband’s chair and wraps his arms around him, resting his head on Yixing’s shoulder. Yixing puts his pen down and turns his head, his mouth against Baekhyun’s cheek. Baekhyun giggles as his husband gives him small pecks, making ridiculous sounds as he does. The exhaustion and tension melts off him a little and he hugs his husband’s shoulders tightly. 

“We’re going home early tonight. I want you to rest some more.” Yixing murmurs as their silly moments ceases. 

“I’m fine Yixing, really.” Baekhyun whines exasperatedly, throttling his husband slightly. 

“You can’t be exhausted before the tour, sweetheart. And besides, maybe I want us to do other things besides sleeping…” Yixing says, a notch husky as he puts a hand over Baekhyun’s that are linked on his chest and caresses the back of his palm. 

“Ah. But I won’t really be resting if you plan on keeping me up, will I?” Baekhyun is blushing slightly but he leans closer to his husband. 

“So do you want to be asleep when I make love to you?” Yixing grins and Baekhyun stares comically. It is silent and almost as though they can hear crickets chirping and owls hooting. 

“Yixing, you dog!” Baekhyun slaps his husband’s chest, laughing despite himself. 

“Don’t take too long.” Yixing grins widely and gives Baekhyun’s knuckles a kiss, the act uncannily innocent as compared to his previous salacious words.

 

~

 

The door whispers shut behind Baekhyun but he does not go any further. This is the music room he has claimed for himself, the one Yixing first brought him to when the now multi-storeyed building was a humble sized Art Centre. The room is larger, proportionate with the immense growth the whole building has undergone. There are many instruments in the room, some like the guitar, xylophone and violin he can play fairly well and others like the cello and flute that are there for display and aesthetic satisfaction to his musical soul. The walls are still a soft apricot, and feel like they contain the warmth of Baekhyun's soul as he used to and still does pour himself out to them. But the ceiling is now made of beams of glossy burnt umber wood and the spider web of cracks in each corner of the ceiling and walls is gone and the windows are no longer latched sized panes displaying the dead end of another building's window but are now ovular glass glorifying the twinkles of the city lights in the obsidian night after Yixing had bought out and demolished the acres surrounding the art centre. 

The room is still the same in its essence, it is only that his piano bench is occupied and the walls are for the first time tasting the soul of another musician as the blend of happiness and delight hover and dart about the room, like fairies and magic, twinkles and stardust. They emanate from the heart of the musician playing and strike Baekhyun’s chest, a quiver through him like a shivery warm greeting, reminding him of the past, taking him back to a time when the world did not look at him with awe but he looked at the one person that was his world with unalloyed admiration.

They were ten, he and Chanyeol, when they started learning to play the piano. It had only been a few weeks after Chanyeol had more or less started staying over permanently at the Byuns’ house. He had been no stranger to their house before then, running in through the backdoor with Baekhyun straight after school and sitting perched on the kitchen table as Mrs. Byun cooked for them, playing with car toys and sprawling on the floor and staring up at the T.V (of which Mrs. Byun always berated them for). He had spent so much time over at the Byuns that when he accidently referred to Mrs. Byun as ‘Mama’, no one corrected him. She became a mother to him, just as much as she was to Baekhyun.  

Mr. Byun was a music professor and Mrs. Byun taught piano to a night class when Mr. Byun returned from work. Baekhyun’s life was already intertwined with music, from the time that he was born.  But surprisingly, it had been Chanyeol who had an affinity for it. Over the years, he mastered the keys faster, the melodies and movements, they came out like singing lines and fluent bars. Baekhyun did not resent Chanyeol for being better than him at his dream, he could not. Instead, he loved him more for it. He looked up to him. And he loved the art even more. He admired Mozart and Chopin, learnt the pieces of Beethoven and Debussy but it was Chanyeol that was the supernova he was trying to reach, the supernova tying him to his dream. There was nothing more mesmerizing than Chanyeol playing the piano and later when they had both learnt how, Chanyeol playing his compositions. It felt as though they existed in a world within the world, one that was their own, when they played together. The music came from their hearts, their souls understood each other and the music was encrypted with their love, making it all the more enchantingly beautiful. Baekhyun’s notes were sonorous and contrary to their expectation, it was Chanyeol’s notes that were feathery, balancing them out. It was unabridged joy.

The notes are still feathery. They make Baekhyun ache. He stands and he watches. He is somewhere between the flowery wallpaper of the music room of his parents’ home and the soft peachy walls of company music room, somewhere between a Chanyeol that has coppery hair and a delighted grin, a Chanyeol that he can call his and a Chanyeol that has aged but still looks youthful, a Chanyeol that has gray strands in his hair and still wants to call him his but he cannot belong to. 

“My Light, come here.” 

Baekhyun is unaware when Chanyeol stopped playing or when he realized Baekhyun was present in the room but that is what makes him open the eyes he had subconsciously closed. Nothing has changed in the way Chanyeol looks at him and the hurt that had been evident in him this afternoon seems like a myth. He is waiting expectantly for Baekhyun to walk to him and Baekhyun already feels so tired, so exhausted of pushing Chanyeol away, pretending nothing has happened and keeping the past memories, the good and the bad, at bay. He heaves a breath and decides there will be no harm in sitting next to his husband’s employee. He walks over and settles next to Chanyeol on the bench. 

“Let’s play.” Chanyeol says, hands poised on the keys. Baekhyun is unsure; it has been twenty years since he last played the piano with Chanyeol, two decades since he had ever played with anyone else. There was no one else whose melodies he was on par with, no one whom he could find serenity and free reign with. But it has been twenty years and he is not sure he and Chanyeol still have this either. He holds his breath when he feels Chanyeol’s hand on his, guiding him to the keys. 

Chanyeol starts off for them. Fragile notes. Testing the waters. Toeing at the edge of Baekhyun’s memory, bringing back the fluency. Baekhyun wants to scream at him to stop. He wants to scream at him that this is too painful. It’s too painful remembering Sunday evenings spent drinking lemonade on their back veranda in the Summer after having played for hours, it too painful remembering sitting in front of the crepitating fire on Winter evenings before their nightly escapades and it’s almost breaking him remembering the desperation in which he had listened to their recordings under his covers after the incident, after Chanyeol had been taken away from him. He does not scream, he does not utter these words. Because his screams had never been expressed through a human mouthpiece or ripped from a trachea. His screams were always hidden in bleak notes, rapid pieces and screeching sullen crescendos that shake the organ of the piano itself.  

So he straightens his wrist and his posture and he intervenes the lovely piece Chanyeol is playing. He adds his fury, his unforgiving pain and the deep-rooted nostalgic misery that always creeps into him once his thoughts ever wander to the past, the past he would have been content with before that incident, even if he never made it big and the world never heard his name or compositions. Chanyeol’s hands did not falter. The taller one played, gentle caresses to Baekhyun’s wrath, the foam soothing the sand after a merciless wave. It is a terrible beauty, what they are playing. It does not have order, there is no line, it’s not an allegro, it’s not an adagio or a presto and there is no succession of movements. It is a fluent accentuation of a terrifying miscellaneous medley of a disaster of emotions, two decades of remorse and longing and suffocated love. 

Baekhyun is shaking when they stop. Chanyeol is too. But the taller one is smiling. And Baekhyun is close to tears. 

When Chanyeol reaches out a hand and brushes the hair away from his face, Baekhyun does not flinch. He does nothing. Chanyeol is looking at him, he can feel his gaze on his face, not boring in but willing him to turn. But he cannot, he does not want to meet Chanyeol’s eyes. When Chanyeol wraps a firm arm around his shoulders and pulls him flush against him, he, again, does nothing. Chanyeol rests his chin atop Baekhyun’s head and sighs. Baekhyun does not return the embrace or put his arm around Chanyeol’s waist, they are gripping the edge of the leather bench behind them. He clenches it hard, nails digging in, crescents that will undoubtedly be there as evidence of his internal struggle. His conscience is making his insides roil in alarm, pleading with him to move away, move away now. But Chanyeol’s warmth, and his breathing and the fact that it’s Chanyeol, anchors him to the spot and he can feel himself slipping, sinking into another moment of feebleness, one that will haunt him as soon it’s done. 

“I didn’t believe it at first, you know?” Chanyeol laughs a little. It sounds wretched. 

“When they told me you…you were married.” the words sound like they are said through a smile but Chanyeol’s fingers tightening on his shoulder prevent Baekhyun from wanting to confirm. 

“But I…I think I understand.” Baekhyun is sure Chanyeol is smiling. He peeks from under Chanyeol’s shoulder, up at the giant. He is right, Chanyeol is wearing that silly infectious grin and Baekhyun feels like he has been teleported to another time. 

“You got lonely, right Baekkie? It’s been hard on you, right my Light?” Chanyeol is still smiling but he looks remorseful, regretful and a little despondent, all blamed at himself. He brings a hand up to cup Baekhyun’s cheek, pad of his thumb gentle on the pianist’s cheek. Baekhyun is sinking into Chanyeol, it is not something he can prevent, it is not something his soul has ever been seasoned to do; resisting Chanyeol that is. In the depth of Chanyeol’s warm eyes, Baekhyun thinks it’s not the worst place to drown. 

“But I’m back. I’m sorry for leaving, my love. You’ll return to me now, won’t you my Light?” the gentleness of the murmured request, water drifting on velvet, makes Baekhyun feel like he is being sundered by icy spears. Though he knows he has no other option, the delicate hope lit in Chanyeol’s eyes is something Baekhyun does not want to fragment. He does not want to be the one to do it, at the least. 

“C-Chanyeol…” Baekhyun puts a hand on Chanyeol’s chest. Perhaps to push him back. Perhaps to feel his heart, once more before he breaks it. Chanyeol’s brows are furrowed as he searches Baekhyun’s eyes desperately. Baekhyun looks away and instead studies the face he has missed gut wrenchingly, though he has not allow himself to admit it, the face he yearned for even in the oblivious clutches of his dreams. The coppery mane has thinned, and indeed the gray strands are there, it had not been an illusion last night. The lines etched on the taller one’s face are not deep but they are discernible, just like the ones at the corner of his lips. Baekhyun vaguely remembers his mother telling him if he smiled and laughed a lot, angels would mark his face with lines and it would be a sign that let everyone know that a beautiful soul was contained inside that body. He remembers Chanyeol was there too, when she told him that. Baekhyun knows how easy Chanyeol’s laughter comes, how bright and wide his smile stretches. But he doubts that’s how Chanyeol got those wrinkles, considering where he has been, for the past twenty years. 

“Baekkie, you promised.” Chanyeol’s pout is a replica of the way he used to pout when Baekhyun promised to let him win in their bike races when they were kids but Baekhyun never kept his word, cycling past their finish line with Chanyeol yelling ‘traitor Baekkie!’ behind him . That same innocent, unbridled betrayal. 

“Yeol – Chanyeol – I’m married now.” Baekhyun almost chokes on the old nickname, correcting himself immediately. He loves Yixing, he is sure. But the words feel like acid, burning not only him but eroding Chanyeol too. Chanyeol is shaking his head, like he’s trying to shake the words away and his other hand comes to wrap around Baekhyun, bracing him as though eradicating even a hair’s breadth of air between them will permanently cement Baekhyun to his side.  

“But you promised.” Chanyeol says more quietly, an ounce hoarsely and several ounces broken – breaking. The memory that unfolds in Baekhyun’s mind is one of the earliest of him and Chanyeol, and he damns his mind for not erasing, for not keeping them lost in the chasms of his brain. 

 

_ They are sprawled on their chests on the floor of Baekhyun’s playroom, figurines laid out between them as they strategize and battle each other. The walls of the room are the same violet and burgundy swirls and petals as every other room in the house and the dying rays of the sunset is bleeding in through the window.  _

_ The plethora of sounds and smells waft up the stairs from the kitchen as Mrs. Byun hurries to finish making dinner before she sets off for work. Between the four walls, giggles and animates noises bounce back and forth as the two children play on.  _

_ “Chanyeol! Baekhyun! Dinner soon!” Mrs. Byun yells from the bottom of the landing. The two children pause to yell their ‘okay’s before resuming their game. But one of them is not into it as much as he was, a few seconds prior.  _

_ “Yeol, are you okay?” Baekhyun asks his companion, noticing how his friend is no longer as passionate as he was.  _

_ “Yeah Baekkie…but…” Chanyeol stops and glances towards the door and the window, a disheartened look creeping on his face.  _

_ “Tell me what’s wrong.” Baekhyun has put his figurines down and he has shuffled closer to Chanyeol, their faces close together.  _

_ “I have to go home soon.” Chanyeol tells Baekhyun, his expressive eyes glistening.  _

_ “Not yet, Yeollie! We have to eat dinner! And – oh – don’t you like your house, Yeol?” Baekhyun stops amidst his attempt at cheering Chanyeol up, wondering why his friend was refusing to look at him. He put a stout hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder, jolting him slightly.  _

_ “I do Baekkie…it’s just – “ Chanyeol’s voice is brittle and he looks at Baekhyun with apprehensive eyes.  _

_ “Papa turns off all the lights at night and it’s really dark, Baekkie. I-I get scared.” bleak fear and disjointed despair, they are dominant in Chanyeol’s hushed admission and sadness encloses around Baekhyun’s young heart, tears welling in his eyes for his friend.  _

_ “Yeollie…” Baekhyun wraps both arms around Chanyeol, their faces are now touching and with both of them still lying on their chests, it is a difficult position but this is not the primary concern of either children.  _

 

Chanyeol sounds like that child now, that broken child admitting that he is afraid of the dark. Baekhyun thinks letting go of their love is the darkness Chanyeol is afraid of. And he hates himself for denying Chanyeol ,for moving on and trying to forget it because he remembers. He remembers how much he stumbled in those initial years without Chanyeol, in a cold stony darkness. He does not want Chanyeol to go through that…but what alternative does he have? 

“Yeol…” Baekhyun does not correct himself, he keeps his voice as tender as he can. 

But he knows soft tones will not dim the pain is about to inflict on Chanyeol. 

“Yeol,” Baekhyun says again, bringing a hand to Chanyeol’s cheek, mirroring the taller one’s previous actions. He looks into Chanyeol’s eyes and smiles, despite the stone in his throat and tears in his eyes. For a second, he allows his eyes to fill with love. It’s not hard to bring back something that is embedded between his skin and blood and resting in the uncharted crevices of his heart. He allows Chanyeol to see it, feel it. He remembers their past and he imagines the future they could have had. He traces away a tear from Chanyeol’s cheek, fond. He wants to tell Chanyeol that he loves him, that he has loved him, even when he was broken, even after the incident and even after that, when he moved on with someone else. He wants to tell Chanyeol that he will love him, after this, after he tells him that he can’t be with him, because he is now loved by someone else, someone who resembles an angel, whose heart he cannot bear to break. 

There is a knock on the door and like a poised snake, Baekhyun springs away from Chanyeol, almost tripping back over the bench as though Chanyeol’s touch was scorching him. He is righting himself when the door swings open and Yixing’s head appears from the door that is cracked open. 

“Baekhyun-ah?” Yixing asks tentatively, he knows Baekhyun does not like being disturbed when he transcends into his tranquil realm of music. 

“Yes, my love?” Baekhyun asks chirpily, too loud, too honeyed. He can feel Chanyeol wince. 

“Ah, it’s getting late and we had plans…” Yixing says apologetically, entering the room fully. He saunters towards Baekhyun, putting his hand on his shoulder and glances curiously towards Chanyeol. 

“Oh, yes! I was just finishing up. You didn’t tell me Chanyeol-ssi is such a talented player!” Baekhyun pouts at his husband and Baekhyun believes in that moment that if he believed in God, there would be a special circle of hell created just for him. 

“Aiyo, I didn’t know that either! Is that true Chanyeol?” Yixing looks to Chanyeol who is standing up and bowing at his boss. 

“No, Sajang-nim. Baekhyun sunbae-nim is just being kind.” Chanyeol laughs moderately. He does not meet Baekhyun’s eyes. Baekhyun can feel the sigh of relief and the bead of cold sweat that rolls down his neck. As well as the painful churn in his stomach at the disambiguation of their relationship; ‘sunbae-nim’. 

“Well, I’ll have to hear you play some time. It’s late, aren’t you going to head home?” Yixing asks benevolently. 

“Yes Sajang-nim, I’ll go now.” it takes a few moments for Chanyeol to reply, his gaze stuck on the arm wrapped possessively around Baekhyun’s shoulders. The arm that is not his. 

“Goodnight Sajang-nim, Baekhyun sunbae-nim.” Chanyeol nods at them, unsmiling, his previous aura of warmth and chirpiness gone. A little fear creeps into Baekhyun as he recognizes the glint in Chanyeol’s eyes. But when the door sighs closed as Chanyeol exits and Yixing turns his face upwards to press a kiss on his lips, he tells himself it was not  _ that _ , he did not see it. 

 

_ “Yeollie…” Baekhyun wraps both arms around Chanyeol, their faces are now touching and with both of them still lying on their chests, it is a difficult position but this is not the primary concern of either children. They are quiet awhile, Baekhyun not knowing any other way of comforting his friend besides hugging him in this awkward manner, his lips pursed and his tabby cheeks puffed as he thinks. _

_ “It’s okay Yeol. I have an idea!” Baekhyun says brightly after a while, the sun almost faded completely and the darkness his friend is afraid of seeping in.  _

_ “What is it Baekkie?”  _

_ “Your room is across mine, right? So I’ll tell Mama to let me have the light on, it’s going to reach your room too and then it won’t be dark anymore! There!” Baekhyun says simply, and looks proud of himself. Chanyeol lights up too, his eyes widened and sparkling with relieved happiness.  _

_ “So you’ll be my light then?”  _

_ “Yeah! I’ll be your light.”  _

~

“Oh! Look, the VCR is playing!” Baekhyun says to his husband, his words running into each other in that manner people only manage when they are inebriated. But Baekhyun is not completely inebriated, just sufficient to shrug the anxiety to the back of his mind and enjoy the on-going party. 

He has gone all out, in full costume, for the party that is meant to be a Halloween party as well as a farewell gathering for their beloved executive chef, Do Kyungsoo. His face is coated in a sickly white paste, his lips alizarin crimson, pointed fangs peeking from his upper jaw and resting on his lower lip. His pupils are dark onyx patches and his irises shine white in the eerie contacts. His hair is hidden in the pointed hood of his robe that is the colour of the night sky on a starless night and he looks a positive nightmare. The costume is a bunch of clichés thrown together that look acceptable on him, his affinity for making rags look haute couture. But he had not had much time to plan for an outfit, between the ceaseless preparation and practice for the ensuing concert and the guilt trying to sink him whole. His husband, beside him, is in even less in spirit of the season attire. Yixing has been living in the office, mounds of work awaiting him each day. That, however, has not dampened his mood for tonight. Tonight he has been just as jubilant as Baekhyun, not only for the sake of his husband, but for Kyungsoo who has been dear to them for fifteen odd years, since the inception years of the company. 

The functional hall of the company has been transformed for the event. Half of the room has been cleared to make space for a dance floor, thin sheets of wool and black and orange crepe paper hanging from the ceiling as well as paper spiders and pumpkins, mist steaming in from the machines at both ends of the room and claiming the floor of the dance floor. The dance floor had been packed earlier, the attendees, who were the staff of the company and the artists, deciding to dance it out to the exceptionally well chosen songs the hired DJ played. It is currently abandoned, most settling down at the tables occupying the other half of the room, a gamut of food and drink splayed before them, as the music dies down and the large screen behind the DJ’s station flickers to life.  A hush falls and attention is directed towards the screen, even Baekhyun who knows exactly what is going to play, having been one of those who helped put the clips together. 

The video commences with static, faces and voices barely visible and audible as they flicker in and out of focus. And then it clears and the company kitchen comes into clear view. The noises, the grill and the pots, the faucet and the blender, the knives on chopping boards and the yelled orders, the daily din of the kitchen, fill the room. The camera is shaky and it soon becomes clear why. The person recording the camera turns it around and it faces it towards them self. Baekhyun’s face appears, cross-eyed. A chuckle ripples through the room and Baekhyun smiles sheepishly when Yixing gives him an amused grin. After making a few more funny faces at the camera – that have the attendees burst out laughing – the camera is directed to a new direction. It becomes evident that it is following a specific person and that is soon confirmed by the “Get out of my kitchen with that thing, Byun.” Kyungsoo’s austere face appears, rolling pin in his hand like a weapon of gods. Another round of chuckles and Baekhyun glances at Kyungsoo who is sitting at their table, next to his boyfriend Jongin. Kyungsoo’s glare does not carry any malevolence and even he seems mirthful tonight, a contrary to his stoic appearance. But Baekhyun always had a way of getting in through the cracks in his armour; they would not have been friends otherwise. 

 A sonorous narration begins and the vicinity is once again silent. 

_ It starts with a single person, _

_ A single mind, _

_ A single dream,  _

The screen displays Kyungsoo working diligently in the kitchen, giving orders and sending dishes out swiftly, order after order as the narration continues. 

_ But we are in a world with so many other people,  _

Baekhyun again shows up again conveniently, following Kyungsoo around the kitchen and prying reluctant laughs from the busy chef. 

_ And a single soul is not sufficient to achieve a dream, _

_ In that way that it takes a village to raise a child, _

_ It takes a community to build a dream,  _

_ Whether that community is comprised of family of blood, _

_ Or family made on the streets, _

_ It takes strength of unity and good intent,  _

_ To realise what existed only in imagination,  _

_ For ZYX Entertainment, a pillar in that community is Do Kyungsoo.  _

Baekhyun smiles ruefully as clips of Kyungsoo at work and at home – the ones at home taken by Jongin, which Kyungsoo figures out quickly and glares at his boyfriend for – show and the narration continues. He remembers all the memories tied with these years, the effort and frustration and crippling happiness and relief they came with over the years, the years with Yixing and Kyungsoo and Minseok and Jongdae and everyone in his life after he had metamorphosed and tried to leave the skin of his shed life behind. 

Yixing squeezes his shoulder as though he knows what is going through Baekhyun’s mind and Baekhyun holds his husband’s hand tighter. 

But recently, ever since Chanyeol’s reappearance, unsurprisingly, he can’t seem to think of the past without digging up crumbs of his youth. Simple memories, forgotten scents, grown out of habits. And as always recently, he feels a sickly lurch in his stomach. 

He gently removes himself from Yixing’s grasp, excusing himself to go to the washroom before Yixing realises the glistening in his eyes he no longer seems to have control over.  _ How hard I have tried to evade thoughts of that giant tonight _ , Baekhyun thinks with annoyance. 

~

 

Baekhyun is about to close the toilet stall when a hand comes to halt it. Before it can register clearly in his mind what is happening, the stall door is closed and another body is now inside the limited space with him. He knows, just by the height, who it is and he tries to push him away and open the door. But Chanyeol takes him gently by the shoulder and pins him to the wall. 

Baekhyun does not look up, he does not want to look Chanyeol in the eyes. 

He had worked hard that whole week, avoiding the giant as much as he could, giving him greetings that barely passed as being civil, miraculously remembering all the things he needed to do with  _ Yixing _ once Chanyeol appeared in the kitchen during his daily greetings to Kyungsoo, being in a perpetual rush whenever they passed in the hallways, unfortunately being out of confectionaries by the time he made it to the kitchen, only having two remaining for Kyungsoo and Jongdae. Baekhyun did not think anyone noticed how studiously he was avoiding the new employee but it did not go unseen to him the flash of hurt and pain and confusion in Chanyeol’s eyes the few times he was valiant enough to meet them. But he has to be like this, he has to avoid Chanyeol. If Chanyeol does not have the strength, then he should be able to do it for them, severing the ties. Because not only is it unfair to Baekhyun but also unfair to Chanyeol, for him to think that Baekhyun will be his. Chanyeol – Chanyeol has been through an awfully rough life, Baekhyun can only imagine – and he should be rebuilding his life, it should not be at a standstill. Waiting for Baekhyun would be exactly that; a standstill. Baekhyun cannot be Chanyeol’s, not anymore. So Baekhyun should be strong enough for both of them, to make the choices that will result in their happiness. 

But when Chanyeol tilts Baekhyun’s face up and does not give him a chance to speak before he takes is mouth in his, Baekhyun is starting to doubt his idea of happiness as his old definition of the word resurfaces with the touch of Chanyeol’s lips. Baekhyun’s hands are limp and he feels paralyzed though he knows he should be pushing Chanyeol away, he should stop this now. But the reasons and rationality melt away from him as Chanyeol presses him into the wall and kisses him like he is drowning and finding life simultaneously in Baekhyun’s lips. And with churning horror, he finds himself kissing back, kissing Chanyeol back like he is the oasis in a desert and Baekhyun can’t get enough – Chanyeol can’t get enough and there is a broken treacherous desperation between them. Baekhyun’s arms wrap tightly around Chanyeol’s neck, perhaps this moment can stretch forever if he holds on just tight enough and Chanyeol’s arms are coiled around his middle like a vice as he dips into his mouth, again and again in a tireless dance of ache and passion. 

They are breathless but it is like the air is embellished in Baekhyun’s skin as Chanyeol ghosts his lips over Baekhyun’s neck, to his throat, to the base where Baekhyun is so sensitive and has his neck arching as his eyes shut tightly and drunken whimpers escape him involuntarily. The smaller one holds onto the taller one, the love that life has refused for him to be with, and he sighs and moans as the taller one chases his skin beneath the robe, his legs weakening but a strong surge of strength and incitement coursing through him like a wildfire. 

“Baekhyun, Baekhyun my Light – “ Chanyeol whispers desperately, with so much affection that Baekhyun does not think when he pulls Chanyeol’s face up and kisses him, deeply, as though he is trying to gauge out with his lips all the years and love that has been lost. They are both clothed but their hands are roaming each other’s bodies wildly, a few centimetres of clothes is not enough to douse the flames of their rekindled passion.  There is no other thought on Baekhyun’s mind, he is back in the vacuum in which only he and Chanyeol exist, he is the Baekhyun he can only be when is with Chanyeol and it feels exhilarating and exquisite, even the dull warning bells pealing in his tipsy mind cannot get through to him. In this moment, there is only Chanyeol and if there is a thought that does not concern Chanyeol, it does not matter. 

Until the door of the bathroom squeaks open and someone shuffles in. They are jolted out of the haze that has wrapped around them and Baekhyun breaks away forcefully from Chanyeol, déjà vu turning his stomach. Their breathing is ragged and Baekhyun puts a hand over his mouth – and one over Chanyeol’s too – his eyes pleading with the taller one to keep as discreet as possible. Chanyeol’s eyes are wide and for a split second Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol is about to defy him and speak out but his eyes crinkle at the corners with his signature smile and Baekhyun is confused. The air is awkward as the sound of urination fills the room but Chanyeol is still smiling and Baekhyun is still puzzled. Chanyeol takes Baekhyun’s hand and gently removes it from his mouth. 

“Remember?” Chanyeol whispers, a feather caress in Baekhyun’s ear as the warmth of his mouth presses against Baekhyun’s ear and the shiver that runs through him is discernible to them both. Baekhyun is lucid now and the roiling in his stomach that makes him feel as though he is about to vomit is not just the alcohol in him, but as he racks his brain to piece together the memory Chanyeol is invoking, he cannot push away the giant, he can only breathe in the comfort and heat and inexplicable desire that is yet to fade. 

In reality, this exchange has only taken a few minutes. Yet it feels like decades as Baekhyun remembers, remembers so wholly and vividly it feels like he has been completely teleported to that day, that exact moment when he and Chanyeol went to a Halloween party when they were sixteen, over a year before the tragic disaster struck their lives. 

_ The base is reverberating through the thin walls of their classmate’s house. There is noise and food and decorations and people, a blur that Chanyeol and Baekhyun cannot decipher. They have always kept to themselves, an endless amount of nuisance and amusement they can get up to with themselves alone. But Ahn, a classmate of theirs, invited Baekhyun, a surprise to both Chanyeol and Baekhyun. When most people got the sense that the pair are oblivious to anyone and anything that is not each other, they are normally left to each other. No one tries to interact with them beyond the polite minimum, to Mrs. Byun’s incessant consternation. Mrs. Byun is always encouraging them to interact with others besides themselves, trying to nudge them towards developing greater social skills. However, Baekhyun and Chanyeol do not see the need of being around others when they feel they are sufficient for each other.  _

_ Ahn is in their music class and he always seems to go out of his way to be kind to Baekhyun, especially lately. He greets Baekhyun as soon as he sees him, offers to sit with Baekhyun during class (a request that Chanyeol is less than joyful to hear) relentlessly invites Baekhyun to sit with him and his friends at lunch, remembering to include Chanyeol in that invitation. After so many rejections, Baekhyun felt another rejection would be one too many, especially when Ahn was being so kind and it was irrational to continue turning him down at every corner. So he dragged Chanyeol along with him. It soon became evident how out of their element they are in the din and jovial atmosphere. It is a Halloween party but it seems they are the only ones honouring the spirit of the season, dressing in full costumes as the infamous characters, Joker and Harley Quinn, receiving strange looks from the other party-goers that are dressed in relatively fashionable but normal attire, the only ‘spooky’ aspect of their attire being the extra coat of eyeliner or a pointed witch’s hat. But at least they have each other, so it’s not as worse as it can be and it does not matter what others think because they took a while getting ready, they enjoyed themselves…and Baekhyun prides himself in his makeup artistry skills.  _

_ That is how they find themselves in the bathroom, separated from the noise and peering eyes by the locked door and that is all they need to forget a world behind the door exists, as Chanyeol presses Baekhyun into the wall and their hands roam each other’s bodies, exploring well versed paths. It has been a while since they’ve begun experimenting and learning to satisfy each other’s carnal desires. The stages in their relationship progress as natural as budding flowers, a raw inherent metamorphosis from one stage to another, and even this advanced level of intimacy was achieved without much debate or hesitation.  _

_ Baekhyun wraps a leg around Chanyeol’s calf, allowing the giant to fit between his legs more smoothly and let their bodies touch without a centimetre to spare. Chanyeol’s arousal is evident against Baekhyun’s groin and the smaller one moans, holding the giant that has his heart tighter, pulling him closer so Chanyeol can feel his reciprocated arousal as well. Their makeup is getting ruined but their desire is urgent, the last thing on their mind is Chanyeol’s drawn-on chelsea smile getting mutilated out of shape as he kisses Baekhyun hard and Baekhyun allows him to ruin his makeup, allows Chanyeol’s tongue to stroke arousal and domination into his mouth.  _

_ Swallowed moans, simmering heat, urgent desire and whisper of clothes as they flutter against each other. Chanyeol wants to bruise Baekhyun, lately feels a profound sense of satisfaction seeing the pretty palette of colours he can create on Baekhyun’s skin. They’re  _ **_his_ ** _ colours,  _ **_his_ ** _ shades of violet and carmine and sapphire, gems he leaves on Baekhyun and eventually fading puce and lime, and Baekhyun is so, so breathing-taking and beautiful when he bears himself to Chanyeol, bearing every inch proud.  _ **_His_ ** _ Baekhyun,  _ **_his_ ** _ Light. _

_ He lifts Baekhyun up and Baekhyun wraps himself around Chanyeol, writhing in the giant’s hold. Their arousal is evident and damned be where they are or who will hear, Chanyeol is ready to take Baekhyun, his hand slipping into Baekhyun’s pants, Baekhyun who is ready for him –  _

_ – until there is loud knock on the door that startles them both. _

_ “Chanyeol? Baekhyun? Are you in here?” It is unmistakeably Ahn calling out for them and they both groan in annoyance.  _

_ “We got carried away, didn’t we, Yeol?” Baekhyun chuckles, trying to lower himself from Chanyeol but Chanyeol is not ready to let go, he holds Baekhyun tighter. He hums in Baekhyun’s neck, stealing a few more heartbeats of intimacy before they have to open the door and get back to the arduous task of attempting to socialise.  _

 

When the reel of memory comes to an end and Baekhyun is back in the present, Chanyeol’s mouth is against his again, there is a sense of finality in the softness of this kiss and indeed, Chanyeol pulls back, his face, for the first time in a while, unreadable. He turns from Baekhyun and opens the stall door and Baekhyun’s heart accelerates in panic as he remembers the person that had entered amidst their illicit kiss but to his shameless abhorrent relief, the toilet is now empty again, the same way Baekhyun’s chest feels empty as Chanyeol exits without another word. 

 

~

 

Pleasure. That is what Baekhyun rouses to. He keens into it, not yet fully coherent as to identify its source but just enough to feel the ache throb through him and yearn for more. An indistinctive flash of a toilet stall and moans and tall warm body is brought to his consciousness before it dissipates and he is once again straining to feel more.

He opens his eyes and sees a head of black locks between the sheets and his body and he smiles as he arches. 

“Yixing,” Baekhyun moans, tangling his hands in his husband’s hair, sleep dissipating like mist as pleasure rolls in in waves to replace it. Yixing throats his cock, making him arch steeply. This act of carnal intimacy has caught him off guard, even though it is not uncommon as his husband loves giving him pleasure and Baekhyun, not meaning to be selfish per se, has been inclined to think through the years that Yixing loves giving him pleasure more than he likes receiving it. His husband sucks him harder, swallowing his member and Baekhyun is approaching climax fast. 

When Yixing brings a hand to Baekhyun’s scrotum and fondles it, Baekhyun releases in his lover’s mouth. 

“Good morning, Baekhyun.” Yixing appears from under the cover, Baekhyun’s cum on his mouth and pulls his petit husband into his arms. Baekhyun is retrieving his senses from his climax and wraps his arms weakly around Yixing. 

“Morning.” He grins back. 

They stay as they are for a while, their Sunday cuddling ritual. 

Their room sports the shades of pristine white and depthless black. It is almost sanitized to the freakish level of a hospital, owing to the fact they are both obsessed with cleanliness and their possessions seem few, the room bare. But theirs is the master room and it is so spacious, everything packed away neatly into the walk-in closet (that is fit to be a whole room, complete with an en suite) or the space compartments built into the wall. The bedroom is where they spend the least of their time, the library and music room on the second floor possess most of their time at home, especially Baekhyun who has considerably more free time than Yixing when he is not touring. 

It does not seem to be a bright day outside, gloomy November appropriately greeting them with bleak shades of gray and frostiness but Baekhyun and Yixing are warm in each other’s embrace and they let the time slip by, let their respective tension and burdens that had piled on in the duration of the week melt away, even if those burdens have not been completely divulged between each other, they know each other well and are aware how diligently the other works. 

“Baekhyun-ah,” Yixing says, his tranquil voice blends into the silent serenity between them. Baekhyun hums in reply, his eyes remaining closed and his body snuggled into his husband’s. 

“I don’t think I mentioned it yesterday but I’ve found a new tutor for Jian and Jun.” Yixing informs Baekhyun as he brushes away a strand of hair from Baekhyun’s forehead that is covered by a sheen of drying sweat. 

“Oh, that’s nice. You evaluated them, right?” Baekhyun says contentedly, not all that concerned about his nephews getting a new piano tutor in the meantime that he tours. He trusts Yixing’s judgement, not only is he the twin’s uncle but also a music teacher himself and the CEO of his own music company. Baekhyun may be a renowned musician but Yixing is more than capable of picking a new music tutor, since he will be busy with his tour. 

“Yes, of course. I think you’re aware of their abilities too.” There is a smile in Yixing’s voice and Baekhyun opens his eyes in curiosity. 

“Really?” 

“Yes. In fact, he’s going to be here soon so I should probably get going and fetch the twins.” Yixing says as he looks to the clock on their nightstand. He lowers Baekhyun onto the bed but Baekhyun’s curiosity has been piqued and the sense of foreboding in his stomach does not allow him to lie back down. He finds himself anxious, though he is not completely lucid on as to why. 

“Wait, isn’t it still early yet? And…who is it?” Baekhyun swings his legs over the edge of the bed, watching as Yixing makes his way to their bathroom. When Yixing disappears into it, Baekhyun hurries in after him, knowing that his husband is distracted and has probably already forgotten that Baekhyun has questioned him. 

“We stayed late at the party last night and you got knocked out sleepy head. It’s almost noon. And it’s Chanyeol. You agree that he plays well, right?” Yixing spoke muffled around the tooth brush but the words are crystal clear to Baekhyun. He feels as though he will soon go into cardiac arrest. 

“W-what?” Baekhyun whispers meekly, bracing a hand on the doorway, his knees giving just a little bit. Yixing continues brushing, oblivious to the suddenly dizzy spell that takes over Baekhyun as his life begins to morph into something of a nightmare. 

“Yixing, what did you say?” Baekhyun snaps, his voice echoing in the shiny marble bathroom. He winces immediately at the severity of his tone but Yixing has picked up on it too and he halts brushing and turns to his husband. 

“What’s wrong?” Yixing puts the brush down and walks over to Baekhyun, putting his hands on his shoulders but Baekhyun shrugs him off. He is irritated, his skin suddenly feels uncomfortable and there is a heaviness in his chest. He is not angry at Yixing. He is itching with guilt as his shamelessness in the bathroom stall comes back to him with disheartening clarity and he is not only ashamed of himself but revolted by himself. He can’t bring himself to meet Yixing’s eyes as he takes a step back, he does not deserve the touch of his seraphic husband. 

“Nothing’s wrong. Just…why didn’t you talk to me first?” Baekhyun’s self-loathing lashes out like a hot whip, unfortunately at someone who is undeserving of it. Yixing’s puzzled look is justified, hadn’t Baekhyun always said that he trusts Yixing’s judgement? 

“Is there something wrong with Chanyeol that I should be aware of, Baekhyun-ah?” Yixing tries to pacify his evidently vexed husband, racking his brain for the reason behind Baekhyun’s ire. 

“No…I – no. It’s nothing. Never mind.” Baekhyun tries to shrug it off and move away from the doorway but Yixing’s concern has not been satisfied. 

“Baekhyun. Tell me. What’s wrong? Has Chanyeol wronged you? Do you want me to find someone else?” Yixing asks with worried eyes and voice piqued with concern. 

A stone drops in Baekhyun’s stomach and in that moment he condemns himself more than anyone could ever. How does he confess his sins to his husband? How does he admit his mindless infidelity? Yixing should be revolted by him, he should despise him for breaching their love like that. He is undeserving of this pure love, he is undeserving of Yixing’s inherent kindness. 

“No…He hasn’t Xing-ah. I…Is it okay for one of our employees to enter our home?” Baekhyun swallows, his throat feels parched and swabbed with salt. 

“I don’t understand, many of our employees have been here. Tell me my love, has Park Chanyeol wronged you?” Yixing asks as he rubs Baekhyun’s shoulders, drawing his further into his arms. 

Baekhyun almost laughs. In Baekhyun’s memory, as far as it will go, Chanyeol has never done a single thing with the intent of harming Baekhyun. It seems Baekhyun is the only one who has changed and Chanyeol is still the same Chanyeol, preserved in his memory from twenty years before. 

“He has not, really Yixing. He seems nice enough. The truth is that I’m just a little upset over leaving Jian and Jun. Stupid, right?” Baekhyun tries for airy laugh which he hopes will come off as sheepish, wrapping his arms around Yixing. 

Yixing still seems concerned, assessing his husband’s face, as though the answers to his discomfort will be written there. After staring at Baekhyun’s pouty smile, he gives in and kisses Baekhyun’s lips, chuckling at his husband’s silly reasoning. 

“The twins will visit you during the tour, don’t worry. It’s not like they can stay away from you either. Or Yan-jie for that matter.” Yixing rolls his eyes and sends Baekhyun into their room with a tap on the butt as he turns back to the bathroom to resume his preparation for the day. 

  
  


~  

 

Yixing is has only been gone for ten minutes when the doorbell echoes through the house, startling Baekhyun. He is hardly ready, still in his fluffy morning robe, intending to take a quick shower. When Yixing mentioned that Chanyeol would be here soon, he did not think Chanyeol would be here  _ this _ soon. 

His stomach aches and he digs his nails into his palm, trying to settle his heart, trying to think of how he will deal with Chanyeol. 

It has not even sunk into him properly that Chanyeol, the past love of his life whom he did not expect to ever see again, is going to come into the home he has built with Yixing, the man who now holds and cradles his heart in his palm. It is severely disconcerting to Baekhyun, to say the least. 

He abandons the thought of a shower and hurriedly enters his shared walk-in closet to pull out the first articles of clothes that meets his sight; a t-shirt and jeans. He is just pulling on his t-shirt when the doorbell rings a second time and Baekhyun curses, trying to hurry up. 

_ Treat him like a normal guest _ , Baekhyun thinks. It’s only right.  _ And easier than facing the truth,  _ a visceral unmerciful part of him whispers unkindly. 

 

“Hi.” an obnoxious bouquet of flowers greets Baekhyun, he is taken aback. A grinning face appears as the bouquet is moved to the side, bright and silly and familiar. 

“Hello Chanyeol.” Baekhyun says, his voice level and controlled, his face masked and void of emotion. 

The bouquet remains between them, Chanyeol swinging on his heels, other hand behind his back, looking as though he has come to collect his sweetheart on a date and Baekhyun still distant and unamused. 

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” 

Baekhyun wants to close the door, he wants to tell Chanyeol to go away, to never come back. He wants to tell Chanyeol to move on, find a new light, even though the thoughts feel like poison to his heart. He chants Yixing over and over in his head and he recalls the concern earlier today. And remembers,  _ treat him like any other guest _ . 

“Come in.” Baekhyun smiles, all teeth and no emotion, like a robot trained for a humane action. He holds the door open as Chanyeol shuffles in. He tries to ignore the spark of attraction and appreciation he feels for how handsome Chanyeol looks, for once not in kitchen garb. But he buries it down and leads Chanyeol to the living room, aware of how awed Chanyeol seems to be of the meticulously designed mansion. 

“Have a seat. I’ll bring you something to drink while you wait for the kids.” Baekhyun says, clipped. He turns, brushing aside the fact that Chanyeol is seated on the couch he and Yixing have lain wrapped together for hours, cuddling and sleeping on nights they are too tired to move to their room once Baekhyun gets back from his erratic nightly piano sessions. 

“Wait,” Chanyeol says, getting up before Baekhyun leaves the room. Baekhyun halts but does not turn around, praying for the moments to go by faster so he can be out of Chanyeol’s presence, so he can keep the vows he renewed in his mind to stay loyal to Yixing. His most recent epiphany and deepest consternation is that that it’s not Chanyeol he does not trust. It’s himself that cannot trust to be strong, strong enough to stand against the tide of emotions Chanyeol brings back. He can not stand his ground against Chanyeol, he keeps slipping up and getting swallowed in his wave. 

“Aren’t you going to show me around? I – I want to see where my Baekhyunnie lives.” The shy sincerity in which Chanyeol says this with and the firmly uttered possessive pronoun makes Baekhyun wince. He wonders again when Chanyeol will understand that he is no longer his. That he is married, that he has a husband. That he has a life now in which he is not Chanyeol’s ‘light’ but the man who bears the partner of Yixing’s wedding band. 

“The kids will be here soon.” Baekhyun says and makes to walk away when a hand lands on his shoulder and halts him. 

“Please, my Light.” the pouty plea made Baekhyun grimace though he knows he is doing right in distancing himself from Chanyeol.  _ Treat him like any other guest _ . Baekhyun sighs and nods, motioning for Chanyeol to follow along. 

“Baekhyun, these are for you…and… and Yixing.” Chanyeol says as Baekhyun once again leads them down a corridor, the words sounding painful to hear, just as much as Baekhyun imagines it’s painful for Chanyeol to utter. 

“I guess we better start with the kitchen then,” Baekhyun says, taking the bouquet from Chanyeol, knowing his silence is impertinent, that he should at least thank Chanyeol. But he does not and they walk in silence, their bleak footsteps on the marble floor the only sound. 

“Wow!” Chanyeol gasps as soon as they enter the kitchen. 

It is magnificent indeed to warrant such a reaction. It is a gourmet kitchen, complete with all the necessary professional appliances and utensils associated with professional kitchens. In harmony with the spectrum of the house, the floors and island and counters are made of lambent ivory marble, beautifully veined and mottled in shades of white and the gleaming silver appliances are not completely incongruous either. The tubular skylights on the ceiling create a soft ambiance where the light reflects off the marble and makes it seem like everything in the kitchen is radiant. 

It is a chef’s dream kitchen. 

That is exactly why it belongs more to Yixing’s sister more than it does to either of the owners of the home. Though food enthusiasts, Baekhyun and Yixing are not top tier chefs and the only reason their kitchen is this grande is because of Yixing’s elder sister, Yan, who makes herself at home in their kitchen and bakes and cooks a week’s supply of food for them, claiming they are not taking care of themselves. When Yixing and Baekhyun had proposed getting a house cook, her bewildered insulted countenance was sufficient to make them toss away the proposal immediately. It seemed to be something of an insult to her title as a renowned chef. 

Baekhyun ignores Chanyeol and lets him ogle the kitchen to his eyes satisfaction as he opens and closes cupboards in search of a vase. He thinks he might find one in the storage but he is eager to get the house tour over and done with as soon as humanly possible, so he half fills a crystal jar with water and submerges the stem of the bouquet, placing it on the island. 

“Are you ready to move on?” Baekhyun asks, a little impatient. It’s getting harder not to stay resistant to Chanyeol, to not gravitate to his orbit as is his visceral nature but he is trying so hard not let Yixing down, not to let himself down again. And he thinks that he will keep up this insolent and impatient façade if that is what it takes to severe himself from Chanyeol. 

“Huh?” Chanyeol looks disoriented, like a child interrupted in the middle of gazing at stars. 

“I said; are you ready to move on?” 

Chanyeol stares at Baekhyun. 

“No, I’m not.” Chanyeol is quiet and Baekhyun is bemused. 

“You don’t want to see the rest of the house then?” Baekhyun tries to confirm. 

“Oh, that. Yes. Yes, let’s go to the next room.” Chanyeol says, he seems crestfallen and Baekhyun again digs his nails into his palms. He forces himself to feel numb. He forces the emotions as deep as they will go. And seeming as he buried them well enough all those years, the crevice in his chest is a large one. He blinks. He is numb. 

 

The second floor has a few more guest rooms, most of them being on the first floor but it is predominantly the library and the music room. Chanyeol looks at the great shelves of books with admiration, not failing to notice the desks and cushions and futons placed between the columns and rows of shelves. Sometimes Baekhyun curls up on a futon or lies over a cushion, snuggled with a book while Yixing works at one of the desks, whenever he chooses to work from home, which happens to commonly be Sundays, the only day he is supposed to be off work (but still chooses to get more paperwork done before the new week commences). Baekhyun shows Chanyeol all of this in a clipped breeze, barely leaving time for Chanyeol to sink in his surroundings before Baekhyun is already whizzing off to the next room. Baekhyun thinks he is doing a remarkable job at being austere. 

However, it is when they enter the music room, Baekhyun’s heart and home, that Baekhyun feels the emotions he tried to sunder resurface. Because after Chanyeol carefully absorbs all the instruments in the room with special attention to the three pianos poised stoically, dominant and majestic in the middle of the room, the one in the centre of the three looking bigger, exalted, Chanyeol asks Baekhyun a question, the first thing Chanyeol has said since the involuntary confession in the kitchen. 

“The piano in that music room in the company…is it really Lux?”  

Though he was already standing stationary, Baekhyun pauses, as though time itself has paused with the question. He tries to breathe deeply but he can’t find any air in his lungs. He curses Chanyeol. Why, why is the giant trying to bring back everything he has worked hard to leave behind? 

“Yes – yes, it’s Lux.” 

Chanyeol smiles radiantly, Baekhyun looks away. Maybe he should have left Lux behind too. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not leave behind the piano he and Chanyeol played on, day in, day out, for the greatest portion of their early years. Their first melodies, their first mistakes, their first perfected compositions. The piano had belonged to his father, unnamed but loved between all of them. But when Chanyeol dubbed it ‘Lux’, some time after moving in with the Byuns, no one rejected it. Especially Baekhyun, when he found out the meaning. 

“Let’s go.” Baekhyun moves abruptly, unwilling to face the memories creeping up. 

Baekhyun is about to climb up the stairs to the third and final floor of the mansion when he remembers that it is occupied solely by his and Yixing’s master room. So he instantly changes direction, the prospect of having Chanyeol in the room he and Yixing and sleep and make love in quite unappealing. He walks into Chanyeol who was directly behind him. The taller one puts steadying hands on his shoulders. Their proximity is disconcerting, how Baekhyun is leaning into Chanyeol’s warmth is alarming. 

“Aren’t we going up there?” Chanyeol asks, his face close and breath tingling warm on Baekhyun’s skin. 

“N-no.” Baekhyun is sure he is supposed to be leaning away, getting out of Chanyeol’s grip. 

“Why?” 

“It’s – It’s just Yixing and I’s bedroom.” Baekhyun shrugs, trying to steer Chanyeol away by heading towards the stairs leading down. But Chanyeol does not let Baekhyun go. 

“It’s just a bedroom, right my Light. I just want to see it.” Chanyeol shrugs, just as nonchalant as Baekhyun. Baekhyun thinks he can stand and argue with Chanyeol but he is already so weary, desperate to get away. It will be faster anyway to let Chanyeol briefly glimpse the room and leave him in back downstairs. Baekhyun can ignore the awkwardness of having his previous lover in the room he shares with his husband.  _ I can do it _ , he chants to himself. 

“Fine.” Baekhyun sighs and turns to led them up to the last floor. Chanyeol feels too close, right on his heels and he wonders why he is so conscious of their proximity. 

When they enter, Baekhyun is impatient and he wants to usher Chanyeol out of the room immediately but Chanyeol wonders to the French panes and looks out. There are trees on all the cardinal points to Baekhyun and Yixing’s home, a single building of bricks and sand and stone in the heart of green and the view of the canopy of sage viridescence from their bedroom is quite breath taking.  

“Okay, let’s go now.” Baekhyun is already at the doorway. He hopes his obvious impatience will hurry Chanyeol along. But the taller one remains at the window and Baekhyun feels even more irked. He walks hastily to Chanyeol and decides to pull him along. It’s as though Chanyeol is ready for this, he grips Baekhyun’s wrist and turns him so his back is against the window and he is chest to chest with Chanyeol. The taller one takes his chin in his head when he looks down, when he refuses to look up at Chanyeol. 

“Baekhyun – my Light – are you really going to do this? Are you going to pretend that we are nothing?” Chanyeol sounds broken, his words cut into Baekhyun like shards. He struggles against the taller one, trying to walk away before it gets to painful – so painful that he’ll give in – but Chanyeol’s hold on him, even now, is too strong and Baekhyun is anchored to the spot, Chanyeol had always been his roots, and he is staring back at the sparkling nebula of warm brown, where he is drowning in the evident plea in Chanyeol’s eyes. And even if Chanyeol is not holding him still, he would not be able to look away now, captured, arrested, a willing victim. 

It is like his walls are made of paper when it comes to Chanyeol, they are demolished as easily as a house of cards would be in a tornado, shredded to pieces until it is as though it had never been. Baekhyun can feel it, his walls crumbling. He can only stare back as Chanyeol lowers his head, lower until is right against Baekhyun’s and he is wrapping his arms around the smaller one. Baekhyun feels small. He feels delicate. The way Chanyeol’s hand grips his hip and curls around his nape, the firm gentleness, it makes him feel the fluttering delicateness he felt long ago when he and Chanyeol were more than lovers and had their future mapped before them, as real as the night sky. 

“Baekhyun,” it is a hoarse plea of an anguished man, one who has been denied his love for two decades, one whose hope is burning close to the wick’s end. 

“Chanyeol – Chanyeol, I can’t,” Baekhyun says, his lips centimetres from Chanyeol’s that have been inching close, his hands shaking where Chanyeol’s shirt is bunched between his fingers. His eyes dart to the bed, the bed that he was cuddled with Yixing just this morning, the bed that Yixing gave him pleasure between the sheets, the bed that he has made love on with Yixing countless times. 

His eyes are averted from the bed as Chanyeol tilts his head again, making sure that he is all that Baekhyun sees. When Chanyeol eyes hold such sadness, the desolation of twenty years, Baekhyun can’t think straight. The intrinsic care in him for Chanyeol’s happiness will not allow him to turn a blind eye.  He wants to make it better, whatever he has to do restore Chanyeol’s happiness. Old habits die hard, but it seems they are effortless to revive. 

“I didn’t think you would break your promise, Baekhyun. That’s what…That’s what kept me going.” Chanyeol confesses. He bows his head, hiding in the crook of Baekhyun’s neck but Baekhyun does not have to see the pain to know it’s there. He doesn’t want to but the horror of the reality strikes him, how Chanyeol was clutching to an already broken string while Baekhyun…While Baekhyun moved on. He feels his heart break, a little more than little, just enough for his knees to weaken and arms wrap around Chanyeol, trying to hold him together, hold them both together even if they have wandered too far, even if there is too much lost time separating them both and they are on isolated islands, unreachable to each other. 

“I can’t stop trying Baekhyunnie, I have to – I need to get you back. You’re mine. You said you’d always be.” an accusation, an appeal. A desperate attempt to reinstate what’s real. 

Chanyeol kisses his neck. 

And again. 

He moves up, along the expanse of his skin. 

To his jaw. 

Beneath his lips. 

On his cheek.

Baekhyun is frozen. 

Inside he is hollering at himself.

But inside, he is also melting. 

The sweetness in which the kisses are placed on him, it is like the sweet velvety inebriation of wine. The gentleness in which Chanyeol holds him, it is like feathery gentleness of a snowflake landing on a rough bark. Chanyeol maps his skin with sweetness and gentleness and pleasant desperation, until he finds his lips and Baekhyun is dunked into a fresh sort of inebriation. 

Each second of the kiss erases reality and responsibility and guilt. It erases anything that is not Chanyeol, it erases anything that is not the delightful vacuum in which their love exists. It erases and erases, rewriting old love, forming new love and reviving the doused embers of their passion, until it is building up, whistling loud like a kettle and burning and burning, a white hot conflagration that needs release. 

Chanyeol pushes Baekhyun back against the window and Baekhyun pulls Chanyeol closer, both too far gone to ponder this incessant déjà vu. Their unsatisfied desire from the previous night – and nights long before that – is set aflame again and there is no curbing it. The taller one picks Baekhyun, desperation riddled in each step he takes towards the bed. He lays Baekhyun down and before the smaller has a chance to regain his senses or be repulsed by the fact that this is the bed he shares with his  _ husband _ , Chanyeol is pulling his shirt over his head, tossing it to the floor and kissing Baekhyun’s torso, as though he wants to disappear into Baekhyun’s skin. 

“Missed this so much,” Chanyeol murmurs as he kisses Baekhyun’s stomach, again and again and Baekhyun almost cries. He tangles his hands in Chanyeol’s hair, scratching Chanyeol’s scalp lightly the way he used to and gives the taller one a watery smile. This close, it seems Chanyeol has more gray hairs than he accounted for but before he can dwell on that, Chanyeol has moved to his member, kissing the clothed cock. He bites his lip and moans, Chanyeol’s teeth softly working his body deeper into arousal, with the practiced ease and well versed knowledge of a past lover who discovered all the pleasuring niches in his partner’s body. 

Chanyeol removes Baekhyun’s legwear with shaking hands, as though he cannot believe it is really Baekhyun before him and he plans to take his time, take his time devouring him. He pushes Baekhyun’s legs apart and buries his face between the smaller one’s ample mounds, inhaling deep as his tongue reaches deeper and brings instant dizzying pleasure to Baekhyun. 

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun rasps, eyes already shut tightly and body so sensitive, too sensitive when it comes to Chanyeol’s touches. 

Chanyeol takes Baekhyun’s lips again as his fingers enter the smaller one. Baekhyun grips Chanyeol’s hair tightly and writhes in Chanyeol’s hold, take pleasure in the burn, in the roughness in which Chanyeol scissors him open. He deserves the pain, he’ll take any Chanyeol inflicts on him. 

Baekhyun is momentarily disappointed when Chanyeol stops and pulls away – to remove his clothes, with the swiftness of a scorched man running into a river – except that Baekhyun is not going to soothe his wild desire, only ignite it further and the smaller one is satisfied, oh so rapturously satisfied when Chanyeol enters him, slowly, painfully, dementing and pleasurable.  Chanyeol holds him up, once he seated fully inside Baekhyun and the pianist wraps his arms around the taller one, letting go of his inhibitions, letting his carnal nature take him and crave, demand more of Chanyeol’s ministrations. 

“More, Yeol, give me more,” Baekhyun pleads, arching as Chanyeol thrusts into him. Chanyeol grips his nape and forces him to look at him, forcing him to look into the eyes of the one commanding his body, giving him whatever he is demanding. 

“Baekhyun, my Light. You are mine. Say it.” Chanyeol says huskily, his voice leaves no ground for argument and Baekhyun does not have a single nerve that protests, his every cell is under Chanyeol’s control. Why does he resist when this is how it is always to be? 

“Yours, Yeol, I’m yours.” Baekhyun agrees incoherently between moans and gasps as Chanyeol’s thrusts get harder, merciless. 

The taller one lays the smaller one back on his back and links their hands and kisses him as he continues to thrust sharply into him, reminding him of all the pleasure that only Chanyeol could make him feel, regardless of who tried to replicate his actions. It is only Chanyeol who can make him feel this, this desire that not only is born of the body, but is an encompassing need originating from the focal point of his being, coursing through the marrow of his soul. 

“You’re  _ my _ Light, Baekhyunnie. Don’t ever forget.” Chanyeol whispers in Baekhyun’s ear, one hand firmly linked between Baekhyun’s dainty fingers and the other relearning the flesh he had memorized decades ago.

“M-my Delight,” Baekhyun finds himself murmuring, too lost to care that he vowed that he would never utter the old nickname again. He cradles Chanyeol’s head in his hand and kisses deeply as though he is drinking from a fountain, the fountain of desire and moans in Chanyeol’s mouth as the taller one hits the spot that makes him see stars, again and again, until he forgets his own name, he forgets Chanyeol and it is almost as though they are one being, moving in an embodiment of desire, reaching for that obliterating ecstasy. 

They find their pleasure’s climax, limbs and flesh wrapped together as tightly as the ribbon on a gift, knotted together and unwilling to unwind. And they stay awhile that way, careless of the universe outside this room, only aware of each other’s breathing and the warmth and pleasure that clings to them, seals them together. 

It is when somewhere indistinct a door slams shut, that the two spring apart. Baekhyun knows that the twins are here, it is they who make the huge house shake like this when they slam the door each week. And without doubt, Yixing, his husband, is with them. 

  
  
  


~ 

 

Yixing’s glasses are perched on his nose. His hand glides over the paper fluidly, he is working diligently. Baekhyun tries to stay absorbed in his book but he keeps peeking at Yixing over the edge, distracted and uncomfortable in his own skin. Is he that great a liar that Yixing has sensed nothing? Not even when he and Chanyeol hurried down the stairs with the claim that Baekhyun was giving him a house tour? Can Yixing not hear the clogs of Baekhyun’s mind overspinning with thoughts of guilt and self-loathing and weakness? 

But Yixing does not take Baekhyun for a criminal, as Baekhyun now thinks he is, and he cannot see the dent in his husband’s loyalty. 

“Jio jio Xing! Chanyeol laoshi said to inform you that he’s leaving now!” Jian barks at his uncle, barging into the room. He stands in front of Yixing’s desk with his hands clasped behind his back staring innocently at his uncle, Yixing who has looked up startled at the sudden noise piercing the previous tranquillity. 

“Jian, how many times have I told you to use your indoor tones?” Yixing chides, sighing and putting down his pen. He places his glasses down on the mountain pile of papers on his side and pulls his nephew closer. 

“Sorry jio jio,” Jian smiles sheepishly, his eyes crinkling into the eye smile Baekhyun thinks no one is immune to, and his crooked teeth and black halo of curls cementing the irresistible cuteness that brings out inherent fuzzy feelings and adoration for children. Of course, Yixing is susceptible to his nephew’s charms. 

“Aiyo, three hours have already passed? How was the lesson?” Yixing asks Jian as he stands up and stretches. Baekhyun marks the corner of the book, though he knows Yixing hates books getting doggy ears, but he does it anyway and sets it down on the futon, getting ready to follow Yixing and Jian down. If the boys’ lesson is over, it means Yan is also here to collect the boys and has also brought dinner. Baekhyun remembers he has not eaten all day. 

“It was really good! Chanyeol laoshi is really nice! He’s the best!” Jian says excitedly, pulling on his uncle’s arm as he speaks, unawares of the offended look that crosses Baekhyun’s face. Baekhyun tip toes and appears behind him and tackles him to the ground. 

“Oh? So he’s better than me?” Baekhyun growls as he tickles Jian, taking delight in the young one’s mellifluous giggles as he pleads for mercy. 

“No! Jio jio Baekhyun is the best!” Jian says desperately, wriggling and kicking out, anything to get his uncle-in-law off him. Baekhyun shows mercy, letting Jian escape his grasp but immediately chasing after him. Yixing yells after both of them but they ignore him and run out of the library. 

But when Baekhyun sees a giant with curls almost like Jian’s outside their music room, he stops dead and the sound of their pursuit dies down to only be Jian’s giggles, unaware that his uncle is no longer on his heels. 

Chanyeol is talking to Jun but when he hears the sound of the pianist and his nephew’s playful giggles and footsteps, he halts mid-sentence, looking at Baekhyun in the eye for the first time since they had hastily thrown on their clothes and took the steps in twos, Baekhyun wearing an oversized fluffy robe that covered his neck to conceal the love bites Chanyeol left. 

However, the don’t have much time to ponder over the nefarious iniquitous atmosphere that lies between them, at least for Baekhyun it is nefariously iniquitous, as Yixing comes out of the library right behind them.

“Chanyeol-ssi, how were the boys?” Yixing smiles, a hand on Jun’s crown of curls, identical to his brother’s. 

“They’re fantastic, Sajang-nim. Very talented.” Chanyeol says humbly, giving the twins a small smile. They beam back at him. It is obvious that they have taken a liking to him.  _ Of course _ , Baekhyun thinks ruefully,  _ how can anyone not love him _ ? 

“Yes, I agree. They take after my husband.” Yixing winks at Baekhyun and the smile Baekhyun gives his husband is a ghostly stretch of flesh and muscle, painful to the eye that searches for the flash of misery in his eyes. The consequences of an odious sin. His recurrent susceptibility to Chanyeol cannot even be called a lapse of judgement anymore. It cannot even owe to shock and disorientation at Chanyeol’s reappearance after he had given up hope. And perhaps now he’ll have to carry the burden of feeling a saw being taken to his heart, each time he looks Yixing in the eye and his conscience whispers;  _ cheater, wicked, evil cheater _ . Baekhyun is not the most evangelical of people but he knows Yixing is his saving grace and he does not want to imagine the consequences of breaking an angel’s heart. 

“Ah, yes. Baekhyun sunbae-nim’s talent shines brightly. He’s like a star.” Chanyeol praises, Baekhyun looks away and Yixing chuckles but agrees with what he thinks is his husband’s fanboy. 

“Do you really have to leave now? How about you join us for dinner?” Yixing suggests as they all walk towards the staircase, the children already zipping down the banister. Baekhyun’s heart constricts.  _ Please decline _ , he hopes hard. 

“Thank you Sajang-nim, but I can’t-“ 

“Oh come on, Chanyeol-ssi. My sister is the one made dinner, you know Zhang Yan, right? And I think these two aren’t ready to see you leave yet. Which spell did you put on them?” Yixing asks in wonder as the twins race back up the stairs, even after having reached the bottom step, only to stand in the middle of the steps where the adults are approaching, making them halt, so they could pout at Chanyeol for him to stay. 

_ Please, please decline _ , Baekhyun pleads with the back of Chanyeol’s head. 

“You make it difficult to decline Sajang-nim.” Chanyeol rubs the back of his neck and Baekhyun’s heart sinks into his stomach. Today seems to be the day that all his nightmares are implementing themselves into his conscious life. Sitting at a dining table with the man who took his husband on their bed. Anger burns and thrashes in Baekhyun’s veins, at himself, for allowing such mockery to happen to his husband in his own home. 

  
  


The twins have trapped Chanyeol between them, vying for his attention with questions instead of eating their dinner until their mother sternly orders them to concentrate on their food. 

Baekhyun thinks Chanyeol is a better liar than himself. Or rather, he sees nothing wrong in what they have done. In Chanyeol’s mind, Baekhyun is his and only his and anything they do together is sacred instead of a breach of morals at this stage. Of course, Chanyeol’s unfaltering claim over Baekhyun is what got them into a tragic mess, all those years ago. 

Chanyeol seems unbothered, talking to Yan, awestruck, respectfully to Yixing and bubbly to the twins. It seems no occupant of the dining table has picked up on Baekhyun’s silence. He is discreetly drowning in his conscience’s reproach. 

“Kyungsoo mentioned how developed your skills are, Chanyeol-ssi. Have you taken culinary lessons anywhere else besides The Culinary Academy?” Yixing asks as he cuts his meat and puts a portion on Baekhyun’s plate. This is not uncommon between them, Yixing feeding Baekhyun from his plate. But instead of the flutter of butterflies the act usually brings to Baekhyun, he feels so intensely the urge to grip Yixing’s grip and make him stop _. I am cheater _ , he wants to say.  _ I do not deserve your love _ . 

“Ah yes, Sajang-nim. I studied at Le Cordon Bleu-Sookmyung Academy for two years before I transferred to The Culinary Academy.” Chanyeol admits. Yan and Yixing gasp simultaneously.

Like a lake freezing abruptly, the blood in Baekhyun’s body runs cold. Two years? The Culinary Academy? Le Cordon Bleu-Sookmyung Academy? But how…? How is that possible when Baekhyun knows that Chanyeol was in  _ that place _ for all this time? Those are prestigious institutes. Only the best of the best can get in and while Chanyeol is most certainly a capable cook, Baekhyun knows for a fact that his record…is the least prettiest. To put it kindly. 

“Wow! You should have put that on your CV as well!” Yixing exclaims, impressed. 

“Thank you but the teacher who taught me the most, and the best, was not from any of the universities.” Chanyeol smiles, Baekhyun is not looking but he can feel it, like he can feel Chanyeol’s gaze. 

“Oh? Who was the magnificent person who taught you to cook best?” Yan asks, leaning in, interest piqued. 

“My mother.” Chanyeol says sweetly. Baekhyun looks up. He feels sick.  _ He knows _ . He knows which mother Chanyeol is talking about. He means Baekhyun’s mother. She…she became a mother to Chanyeol too. Chanyeol is staring at Baekhyun, his gaze unwavering. Baekhyun is terrified by how urgently he wishes the ground would open up and suck him in. 

“Ah, momma’s boy, so sweet.” Yan coos with a sigh as Yixing chuckles. 

“It’s true though, a mother’s knowledge is a priceless gem.” Yixing nods and Baekhyun can feel how strongly his husband approves of Chanyeol already. 

_ If only you knew Yixing-ah, if only _ .

“Yes, that’s true. Our mother was my foundation too.” Yan agrees, relating herself to Chanyeol. 

“Hear that boys? You should listen to your mom so you can be like Chanyeol laoshi.” Yixing wags his finger at the twins. They giggle and nod, beaming up at Chanyeol who smiles humbly at them. 

“Baekhyun-ah, you’re quiet. Are you feeling alright?” Yan says, the first to finally notice his unusual silence. 

“Yes, I’m fine, don’t worry. Just…learning new things about Chanyeol-ssi.” Baekhyun says with tight lips and glassy eyes. 

 

~

 

“I-I’ll see Chanyeol-ssi to the gates.” Baekhyun offers quickly before his husband can slip on his shoes. Yan and the twins have headed to garage to her car, the dinner dining table cleared and dishes cleaned as the kids played in the room Yixing and Baekhyun had specifically designed for them and the adults sipped on wine. It was late and they all needed to resume their personal schedules. 

“Okay. Hurry back.” Yixing says, kissing Baekhyun’s forehead and heads up the stairs, back to the work he took a break from. 

Chanyeol smiles at Baekhyun, a wholesome smile that Baekhyun promptly ignores. He leads Chanyeol out of the front door and waits until they are a few steps away from the mansion to let Chanyeol know the decision he has come to. 

“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun says, glancing cautiously up at the front windows, knowing the window in the library faces the complete opposite direction, but paranoia and guilt is making his skin itch. Night has rolled in fast and the darkness seems sinister, even though Baekhyun revels in the hours of moonlight. Perhaps it’s because the words he will soon utter feel like rancid ash in his mouth. 

“Yes, my Light.” Chanyeol turns back to Baekhyun with a smile. Baekhyun is unable to speak for a while. The wan full moon is behind Chanyeol, it casts a heavenly glow onto him and the moon seems like wings on either side of Chanyeol, protecting him, making him radiant. And more than that, it is his smile, his _stupid_ _smile_ that always manages to sunder Baekhyun of his breath and make him feel as though there is a firework display in his chest and a meteor shower in his stomach.

“Please…Please leave.” Baekhyun says finally after a long pause. 

Chanyeol’s smile falters. 

“What?”

“Go…Just go Chanyeol. Leave me alone. Don’t come back. Please, Chanyeol.” Baekhyun says with heat, taking his guilt and anger out on Chanyeol, aware that his words are lashing out at Chanyeol like a molten whip.

“You want me to…leave?” Chanyeol says as though the words are difficult to understand and he is addled. 

“Yes.” 

Chanyeol stares at Baekhyun. There is a shift in his eyes. A grave sobriety that Baekhyun has not seen in him ever since the first night he reappeared.  A grave sobriety that Baekhyun has rarely seen in Chanyeol’s eyes, the last and most recent that he can recall with horrifying detail is the day Chanyeol was taken away, the moment it dawned on Chanyeol that they could not be together for long time and he made Baekhyun  _ promise _ to wait.

“I know – I know it was hard, waiting. It was really hard for me too. But I thought it didn’t matter, whoever you used to feel better in that time, I told myself it wouldn’t matter because when you saw me again, we’d be together. So I…I don’t understand, my Light. But if that’s what you want…if it makes you happy…” Chanyeol keeps breaking off, like the words are failing him and he cannot fully express the turmoil in his eyes, in his heart.  _ Yixing, Baekhyun _ ,  _ Yixing _ , Baekhyun thinks to steel himself. 

“I just have one more request. One last request, hmm my Light?” Chanyeol’s eyes are shining and his voice is brittle. 

“What is it?” Baekhyun congratulates himself for the frost in his voice. 

“Give me one day. Just one day to be my Light, one last day to live like we were twenty years ago. One last day to be  _ my _ Baekhyunnie.  Come home with me.” 

“No.” Baekhyun immediately rejects. 

“Please.”

“No.” Baekhyun takes a step back to physically, mentally, emotionally distance himself from Chanyeol. But Chanyeol follows. 

“I won’t ask anything of you again. I’ll let you live your life quietly and I won’t mention anything to your – your husband. Give me one last day of happiness,  _ please _ my Light.” Chanyeol’s voice breaks and Baekhyun wants to look away but he can’t, his eyes remain glued to Chanyeol’s face and he sees the unshed tears and he sees the sudden exhaustion on Chanyeol’s face and he sees all the wrinkles he has been telling himself he doesn’t see and he sees how bare and tired and aching Chanyeol is because no one can read him better and he can read no one better than he can Chanyeol. It’s as simple as that because deciphering the other half of one’s soul should be as simple as that.

“Fine,” Baekhyun sighs, running a hand through his hair, he is already so exhausted too, “okay, fine. This is the last time Chanyeol, I mean it. And I get to pick the day.” Baekhyun says wearily, his brain already piecing lies and explanations together to explain to Yixing this last day he will give to Chanyeol. 

“Of course. Thank you, my Light.” Chanyeol does not sound happy, he seems desolate in fact. His smile is weak and his shoulders are hunched and he stares at Baekhyun for what seems like an eternal heartbeat before he disappears into the night. 

 

~

Gray and looming buildings give way to hazel and green country side, city lights and billowing smoke give way to clear night sky. It is the hours of absolute darkness, the shy hours before dawn. The hum of the train and dull, barely perceptible murmur of the few passengers, the steady heartbeat and warmth to his side, the subdued excitement simmering in his veins – amidst the underlying aggressive emotions –unacknowledged but intrinsically felt and understood – nostalgic, passionate emotions, Baekhyun is aware of this all. Beside him Chanyeol is quiet. But he holds Baekhyun’s hand in his own and has held it since they boarded the train. 

And for today, till the sun sets, it is his prerogative to do as he likes with Baekhyun – to Baekhyun. 

Because for today, until the sun sets, Baekhyun is Chanyeol’s and Chanyeol is Baekhyun’s. They are the only version of themselves they know how to be with each other, the only version Chanyeol knows to be. 

It had taken a while, convincing Yixing that Baekhyun needs to visit his parents as early as possible on Saturday so he can spend as much time as possible with them. It had taken a while more to convince Yixing to stay, that Baekhyun would be safe on his own. Baekhyun promised his husband that he would be back before the day was over.

They need to get to their hometown before dawn, that’s what Chanyeol says. Baekhyun knows why. Their first order of business already makes his stomach coil with ache for a past lifetime. He knows this day is one of the decisions he will regret dearly in his life. It took an unhealthy period of time to get over the life he had in his youth. To relive it all, even for a day, it will be like taking a scalpel to a healed wound. Except it won’t be that neat. It will be more like cutting that wound open with the jagged shard of glass. Baekhyun doubts he will be able to heal again. Not only will he have to hide his chaotic broken feelings from Yixing, the lifeline that had seen him through once already, but he is also not sure that he will want to come back to the life he has rebuilt, once he allows himself to be immersed in and reincarnate the sweet, unmatched, afire love he had with Chanyeol. Perhaps a love that great should only be felt, once and briefly, in a lifetime. Perhaps that is why things did not work out for him and Chanyeol as his heart deeply desired. 

Baekhyun wants them to be cautious, he may be recognized. He most certainly will be in their hometown. But not as Zhang Baekhyun, the star. Once in a while, that is what he needs. His hometown where people still treat him as Byun Baekhyun, that nuisance kid who is joint at the hips with Park Chanyeol. 

There was a time where, briefly, he was not treated like that. The incident…left everyone baffled. Horrified. Frenzied. The village was bent out of shape. People one no longer knew how to interact with one another. It was bizarre, something that had hardly ever happened in such a small intimate setting where everyone knew everyone and everyone was working in harmony towards mutual benefit. It was gravely uncharted territory. And everyone treated him like the plague, the few times he left the house after the tragedy. No one wanted to be associated with the nuisance kid who  _ used _ to be joint at the hip with Park Chanyeol. They did not hate him. They just did not know how to act towards him. 

There was only one family that hated him, still hate him, and have every right to. Till this day, Baekhyun cannot face them. He knows he and Chanyeol will have to be discrete when they arrive there. Because even if everyone has forgotten, there is still one family who remains stuck in time, twenty years behind. No matter how hard Baekhyun tries, he cannot pull them out and he cannot earn their forgiveness and he does not know how else to help because he cannot restore what they lost. 

But one day when Mrs. Byun broke down at the market, after having been shunned by every seller and collapsed to her knees, sobbing, most people began to sway, see things from the Byuns’ side. 

_ “Do you think I asked for this? Do you really think that? I raised him! I raised him like a son, took him in when his family was troubled. Don’t pretend you don’t know that, we’re all aware how much this village loves to gossip! Was it I who did it? Was it my Baekhyun? You don’t understand – you don’t!”   _

Baekhyun had not meant to go out that day. But he missed the sea, missed the sand and had been on his way when he passed by the market and saw his mother on her knees. 

He turned the opposite way, turned back home. He wanted to rip out his heart, he wanted to stop feeling. All this  _ pain _ . He knew he should have gone and helped his mother off her knees, taken her back home. But the  _ guilt _ . The guilt wouldn’t let him. 

But the next few days, his mother came back home with groceries from their local markets, not the hypermarkets his father had recently begun to drive out, hours away. 

Over the next few years, Time healed and dulled what it couldn’t bring back. And things slowly resumed their natural order for most. 

Baekhyun sighs and closes his eyes, resting his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder. Like a reassuring echo to his thoughts, Chanyeol holds his hand tighter and rests his head atop Baekhyun’s, his presence a warm cocoon, and the smaller one drifts from dream to dream, Chanyeol in each. 

 

~

 

When Baekhyun’s eyes open, he finds wide affectionate eyes staring at him with barely concealed mirth. Miraculously his position has changed and he is lying across two seats, cradled in Chanyeol’s arms. The taller one’s hand is on his cheek, caressing it tenderly and he realizes that is what roused him. 

“You drooled on my shirt.” Chanyeol states, accusatory. He brings a finger to the corner of Baekhyun’s lips and takes a swab of the liquid pooling there, and smears it on Baekhyun’s lips. Baekhyun jolts up, repulsed. 

“Ew!” He exclaims, pushing away from Chanyeol but he is lying in the giant’s lap and there is only so far he can go. 

“Ew? It is your saliva, you know.” Chanyeol says in amusement, Baekhyun shakes his head profusely, wiping at his lips. 

“Okay, fine. Come here.” Chanyeol pulls Baekhyun towards him and silences his protest, a gentle kiss on the lips, rebranding Chanyeol’s taste on Baekhyun’s lips. 

“Satisfied?” Chanyeol asks, inspecting Baekhyun’s lips proudly. Baekhyun nods shyly. 

It is easy, so easy, too easy to fall into their old habits and into the old effortless atmosphere between them, like a customized glove that does not need any stretching or remoulding. 

It is how Chanyeol wants this day to be. 

_ “Pretend as though nothing has changed. For today, you don’t have a husband. What happened twenty years ago didn’t happen and we were not apart for all this time. You are Baekhyun and I am Chanyeol, as we were then. So just – let’s be like that for this one day.”  _

“We’re almost there.” Chanyeol says, drawing Baekhyun back into his arms, kissing his forehead. They are older, their bodies mature. But they still fit perfectly together. 

  
  


The town is barely waking up. Objects have only begun to reclaim their shape from the darkness of the night and the nocturnal stupor is falling away as the burning star begins its ascent. Chanyeol and Baekhyun are on time. 

From his few and spaced out visits, Baekhyun is right in telling Chanyeol that the miniature stables near the beach has not been relocated. Myungsoo, the owner of the horses, is still around and in business. The stables are open and the horses, the majority of them awake and neighing. 

“Hello, old friend.” Baekhyun reaches a hand out to the stallion and pets its head. Chanyeol is busy placing wads of cash into the flap at the back of the door. They had done this all the time when they were kids, as most of the villagers. Only locals knew of this method to get the horses out as early as predawn. Myungsoo trusted everyone to pay the fee, believing in the integrity of the villagers. Chanyeol and Baekhyun had been his number one customers. 

Myungsoo has a small hut next to the miniature stables, so he can tend to the horses as swiftly as possible in case of a natural calamity. Should more horses be needed during the day, they are brought down from his father’s ranch and used for both leisure and transport for the horse drawn carriages that is offered to tourists. 

The horse Baekhyun is petting, it is the stallion they had been riding all their youth.  _ “Ignis,” _ Myungsoo had said one day while Chanyeol and Baekhyun were helping out in Myungsoo’s father’s ranch,  _ “this one is going to grow up with the spirit of a phoenix.”  _ And the two youngsters had attested to that every sunrise as soon as Ignis was old enough to ride. 

“Hey, old pal. How are you doing?” Chanyeol caresses the ebony stallion’s tufty mane. He covers Baekhyun’s hand with his and the horse submits to their touch, welcoming old friends before neighing loudly and standing on its hind legs, excited to see the two, excited to be let out. It feels so good to be back, amidst the undeniable smell of hay and salinity and crisp fresh air. 

“Let’s get you out,” Baekhyun says, unlatching the stall with a splitting grin. 

 

They walk on either side of Ignis, the once tiny pony fully mature. Time has passed and it did not leave anything untouched, Baekhyun thinks. They will ride bareback, just as they always had, Baekhyun seated in front of Chanyeol and the other holding him dear. 

They ride close to the shore, the crash of the waves spraying them as it dissolves into foam. The sea is a majesty lying merciful when it can destroy everything in one wave. It lays sparkling violet and cerulean and ruby as the sun peaks from the horizon. It is a beautiful rare rainbow, one that will disappear too soon. They start at a canter, familiarizing themselves. And then Ignis, living to his name, begins galloping. This sensation is similar to that when they are zipping down the side of a hilly snow. But today, it feels more enhanced, perhaps because they have not done this in two decades. 

They are flying. Chanyeol’s arm is around him so tight, the one that is not gripping the reign. The sea is a majestic beguiling grace racing with them, pushing them on as Ignis kicks up beige sand in his wake. They are racing with the sea and the sun and the squawking seagulls that are barely perceptible. They have returned to their home and the wind eddying them on is like a welcoming embrace. 

Baekhyun’s hair is flying wild, his eyes are watering and he feels exhilarated, powerful. 

They are a force of nature, Baekhyun and Chanyeol and Ignis as well. 

He screams his lover’s name as he used to, as Chanyeol bellows his laughs and Baekhyun hears his voice rebound off the sea and echo on the cliffs. 

Ignis’ hooves thunder on the sand, one would think the sound would be swallowed by the waves but the waves hurl them back, louder and louder and Ignis’ hooves are like the thunderclap of a gods’ descent from Olympus. 

It is exalting. 

The stallion knows exactly where to stop. It is as though he has followed a path sprinkled with stardust and it has led them to the location where Baekhyun and Chanyeol stole a bit of the galaxy for themselves and hid from the world. At the foot of the furthest cliff on the beach, where there is a cluster of perilous rocks and a cave that has miraculously not collapsed with time. Perhaps there are  _ some _ things that time respects. Some havens that cannot be demolished. 

Baekhyun swings off Ignis first and Chanyeol follows. The taller one nestles the light backpack he has been carrying with essentials between the rocks and turns to the smaller one. Baekhyun smiles at him as they sit with their backs to the rocks and their feet is caressed by the breaking waves, hands intertwined. 

They witness the sun rise.

 

~

It has been hours since the sun has risen and they have talked and listened to the silence and listened to each other’s hearts, the only words they only need sometimes. Baekhyun has been close to tears a few times, recounting to Chanyeol all the years he has missed of his life. But he has not even exhausted half of two decades, not nearly yet. And Chanyeol, Chanyeol has evaded most of the questions, only answering the most basic ones and Baekhyun wants to be angry but he can’t. He understands how Chanyeol would not be fond of recalling his time in such a place. Baekhyun wishes he could have been some comfort to Chanyeol, he voices this with a despaired sigh. Chanyeol hugs him closer and tells him that it is the thought of him that kept him going, kept him strong for all the awfully long while. 

But there is one question Baekhyun desperately wants to know the answer to but Chanyeol has brushed it off and Baekhyun did not want to let up until Chanyeol quieted him with kisses. 

_ “Yeol, tell me, where you have you been the past few years if not…that place…” Baekhyun asks as firmly as he can, willing Chanyeol to look at him. But the taller one does not meet his eyes, intently focused on the waves as he replies. _

_ “We’re supposed to be as we were twenty years ago, remember? Let’s just pretend my twenty years didn’t happen. Please Baekhyun.” _

Ignis gets restless with the hours of being motionless and thirsty too. They try to pour a bottle of water into his mouth but a horse does not drink the same way a human does and they end up making a wet nuisance of themselves. They dissolve into laughter because today nothing matters. It may as well be the last day of mankind’s existence; this is how they will treat it. 

When the sun is high in the sky, they know they should get going if they are to get other things done. But Chanyeol is not ready to leave their haven yet. It feels as though the minutes are seconds and the sun is gliding across the sky too fast. Baekhyun yearns for it to slow down. He wishes the seconds would transform into minutes and minutes into hours. Just this one day, he wishes Time would be kind. 

“Baekhyunnie, you remember how to get to the top of the cliff, right?” Chanyeol asks, eyes sparkling. Baekhyun nods, an amused weariness entering his eyes at the giant’s playfulness. 

“Great! Go up there. And wait till I tell you to look, okay?” Chanyeol says excitedly. 

“Okay,” Baekhyun agrees. 

“Promise you won’t look.” Chanyeol holds out his pinkie finger, a solemn look in his eyes. Baekhyun rolls his eyes but locks his own pinkie around the taller one’s, sealing the promise. 

_ “If I get it in farther than you, you have to teach me to swim, okay?”  _

_ “Okay!” _

_ “No Baekhyunnie, pinkie promise. You’re not allowed to break it.”  _

_ “Promise, Yeol, I promise.”  _

With their pinkies still intertwined, they had tossed the pebbles. Chanyeol lost but Baekhyun taught him anyway, in this exact same part of the beach. 

 

Baekhyun does not break his promise. But he does not have to wait long until the wind carries the echo to him. 

“My Light!” 

Baekhyun peers over the edge. 

It is obvious that Chanyeol has carved the message with his own hands, his hands are covered in sand before his skin disappears into the sleeve of his hoodie and his knees and calf are patched with sand too as he stands to the side, a youthful grin stretching his face. 

_ ‘I love you Park Baekhyun’  _

Reads the message in the sand. 

Baekhyun holds onto the edge tighter. He is not afraid of heights and he is sure the sudden vertigo is not as result of being on the cliff. It is Chanyeol, it is all Chanyeol and the effortless way he can still pull the strings of Baekhyun’s beaten heart. He blinks back the tears and stares at the message, stares at the grinning fool at the base. 

Stares at his future in another lifetime, an alternate reality. 

“I-“ Baekhyun starts feebly, “I love you too Park Chanyeol!” Baekhyun hollers, louder, firmer with his hands cupped around his mouth to make his voice travel the sea so the waves can carry his love. He knows with heart-breaking clarity that it’s true. There is nothing Chanyeol can do to ever repel him or break his love. There is nothing Time can do either, to steal his heart from Chanyeol. It is the desolate truth. 

“Come down here, my love!” Chanyeol yells, his smile brighter than it had ever been, happiness and delight riddled on his face and arms open to embrace the love of his life home. 

Baekhyun hurries down and allows himself to be kissed out of his senses by the giant who still holds his heart in his giant, warm palm. 

 

~

 

They have travelled around their village as discreetly as possible, with as much discretion as they can without warranting suspicion. It is a little difficult but they manage. This owes to the fact that there are so many new faces and fewer older ones. Their chance of being recognized together has greatly reduced as compared to if they had visited a few years before. But Mr. Dojung still runs the diner, Grandma Hyunmi sells her knick-knacks on a sisal mat near the beach and Chunghee watches over the village’s convenience store.

They still risked ordering at Mr. Dojung’s diner, the memory of his delicious meals forever alive and both were craving his superlative rice dumplings. They walked the streets, feeding each other comically and remembering to blend in when their laughter attracted too many eyes. They gave away all their coins to the machines in the arcade, their youthful competitiveness reviving unmercifully the minute they teamed against each other. They laughed and played like teens, stole kisses and swapped playful punches and lost track of time. 

Sunset is approaching and the air is heavy, neither is ready to go back. 

“Can we…Can we visit our house?” Chanyeol requests as they walk the old familiar streets, hands intertwined and walking as close as lovers. 

“Chanyeol…” Baekhyun warns softly, squeezing the taller one’s hand. His heart thuds in painful affection, Chanyeol still calls the house they grew up in ‘theirs’. 

“I know, my Light. I just want to look. I don’t think I’ll ever be coming back. It’s not home if you’re not with me.” Chanyeol does not look back as Baekhyun’s obvious gaze, his words laced with pain. 

“Okay. Okay. But only to look.” Baekhyun gives in. 

“Thank you, my Light.” 

 

~

 

“It’s still the same.” Chanyeol sounds amazed, breathless and agonized. His hands slacken in Baekhyun’s but Baekhyun holds tighter; he is strong enough for both of them in this moment. 

“Even inside. Mom…Mom didn’t want anything to be touched.” Baekhyun says as they stare up at their childhood from across the street. They should get moving soon, someone is bound to notice two stationary figures on the street. But Baekhyun lets Chanyeol have this moment. He lets them both have this moment. It will always be Chanyeol’s home just as much as it was Baekhyun’s, regardless of blood and legal certificates. And that is why Baekhyun’s mother has loved Chanyeol, even after everything. 

 

_ Chanyeol had always spent the after school hours up till past dinner in the Byuns’ house. No one can recall exactly when it became a norm but everyone was swept into the routine. Baekhyun and Chanyeol hardly spent waking moments apart.  _

_ But Chanyeol had always returned to his house, which was next door, at every night, looking forlorn. Mrs. Byun had thought that he was just upset about leaving his best friend and play-mate, Baekhyun. But the reality of the reason behind Chanyeol’s consternate expression was a much more deep rooted horror.  _

_ When Baekhyun had gone running to his mother in the dead of the night one night, crying to her that his best friend was being beaten by a scary man, she had not believed him. She told him that it was just a scary nightmare, so she held his hand and tucked him back into bed. Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s rooms were adjacent and their windows faced each other. The curtains were drawn, the lights were out and Mrs. Byun’s speculation was confirmed, Baekhyun just had a bad dream.  _

_ But when Chanyeol did not come to the Byun’s house the next morning so he and Baekhyun could walk to school together as usual, it raised Mrs. Byun’s concern. Baekhyun was sitting on the steps of the porch, face in his hands and kicking the gravel on the drive with a pout. It was twenty minutes past the time they usually set off for school and any later now, they would be late. Mrs. Byun decided that she would go and knock on her neighbour’s door, and enquire about Chanyeol.   _

_ Mrs. Byun was not expecting to be met with the frantic face of Mrs. Park. She had seen the woman hurrying down the drive each morning, clad in her formidable office attire and clutching files as she made for work, waving at Baekhyun and Chanyeol as they walked away from their houses.  Sometimes they conversed on the rare evenings she came to collect Chanyeol from the Byuns’ house or sat with them in the veranda late Sundays. But she did not look prepared for work that morning, not anything remotely like. She was in her nightgown, eyes puffed and red. Her hair was unruly and there were angry marks on her skin. And an imprint of a hand, bright on her cheek.  _

_ “Jihye?” Mrs. Byun had asked and Mrs. Park had shook her head, holding a finger to her mouth, motioning for Mrs. Byun to be silent. She opened the door wider, wincing when it creaked. A child holding onto the banister at the landing, at the top of the stairs came into view and Mrs. Byun realized it was Chanyeol. Mrs. Park made a quick summoning motion and Chanyeol tiptoed down the stairs. She put her hand on his shoulder as he came down and led him to stand in front of Mrs. Byun.  _

_ “Look after him, Bora. P-please.” Mrs. Park whispered, her hands clutching her child’s shoulders tightly. Mrs. Byun looked down at Chanyeol, who was looking up at her with void eyes. She gasped.  _

_ “Don’t tell his father where he is. Go, quickly.” Mrs. Park said urgently, looking back with fearful eyes. She gently pushed Chanyeol into Mrs. Byun’s arms, placing a soft kiss on Chanyeol’s curls, and closed the door. Mrs. Byun was motionless, staring at Chanyeol with ghastly horror and shock. A loud voice came from inside the house, jolting Mrs. Byun out of her dazed stupor.  _

_ “Mama!” Chanyeol turned around with a desperate forlorn cry, fist pounding on the door. Mrs. Byun’s heart broke a little. She grabbed the child’s hands and pulled him back.  _

_ “Let’s go Chanyeollie. Baekhyunnie is waiting for you.” Mrs. Byun steeled herself, deciding she would process the shock later. Mrs. Park had entrusted her with Chanyeol so she would look after him first and figure out the details of the situation later. Chanyeol had stopped banging on the door at the mention of Baekhyun but he still looked up at his front door with indecisiveness, looking torn.  _

_ “Let’s go.” Mrs. Byun repeated softly.  _

_ Mrs. Byun realized, too late, her mistake. She had been meaning to send Baekhyun off to school without him seeing Chanyeol. But she had forgotten that he had been sitting on the porch. He had lit up at first, his face transforming at the sight of Chanyeol. His face changed again when he took in his best friend’s face. When he took in the swollen eyes, the bust lip and the plethora of bruises running into each other on his chubby cheeks.  _

_ “C-Chanyeol?” Baekhyun stammered, standing up with shaking knees.  _

_ Chanyeol ripped his hand away from Mrs. Byun’s and ran to Baekhyun, toppling them both backwards. Baekhyun held onto Chanyeol, even as they fell and he held Chanyeol as the boy cried into his neck. He held onto to him when Mrs. Byun pressed cotton balls of antiseptic to Chanyeol’s face in their kitchen and he clutched even tighter when Mrs. Byun told Baekhyun he should go to school, that she would look after his friend. He held Chanyeol as though he was afraid of the world handling him, afraid of letting anyone that was not himself touch him at that moment. And as Mrs. Byun wrapped blankets around the two boys curled into each other, she knew separating that kind of bond would be impossible. _

_ And just like that, Chanyeol had stayed with them. He hardly ever went home. Mrs. Park pitched in with finance as much as she could and took Chanyeol back home on the days it was safe, which were very scarce. Every time Mrs. Byun suggested they report Mr. Park, she would freeze up before breaking into a panic attack. She was still in love with Chanyeol’s father and she endured through the years. The Byuns agreed to keep the secret as long Mrs. Park allowed them to take care of Chanyeol in addition to letting Mrs. Park know that they would inform authoritative figures if push came to shove. Push eventually did come to shove when Mrs. Park ran to the Byuns’ home one night when Chanyeol was fourteen, Mr. Park on her heels, inebriated to the heavens and clutching a knife.  _

_ Mr. Park was arrested. But Mrs. Park was devastated. It was a twisted and horrid thing to witness, such emotional dependency and turmoil and abuse. So Chanyeol stayed with the Byuns while Mrs. Park recovered. And even when she came back better, healthier, Chanyeol refused to move back in with his biological mother and no one forced him to.  _

  
  


The hammock on the porch is gone, instead replaced by a wooden bench. The paint is peeling off the wooden shutters on the window and the brick has lost its vibrancy. But it is essentially the same and Baekhyun feels a sadness staring at his old home. 

Chanyeol’s gaze is no longer on their home but the neighbouring house. His parents’ house. The house that had always been sinister, the place where the single life altering incident took place. 

“I ruined it for us, didn’t I Baekhyunnie? It’s all my fault.” Chanyeol says thickly, his voice bleak and sombre and despaired. 

“Don’t think about the past, Yeol. Today, it is the past, remember?” Baekhyun comforts, trying to turn the giant away, Chanyeol’s sadness is not only Chanyeol’s but Baekhyun’s sadness too. He tugs at Chanyeol’s hand but the taller one stays stationary as though he is trying to drink in all the details of this view. Somehow, Baekhyun thinks he understands. 

When Chanyeol turns to Baekhyun, he looks more pained than he has ever seen him. He runs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes, breathing deeply, heavily. He seems to shake slightly but Baekhyun thinks he imagined it because he is once again sturdy. But his eyes are still crinkled and Baekhyun is concerned because this seems to be more than an emotional pain, rather a physical one. But before Baekhyun can ask, Chanyeol kisses him and he kisses him like he wants to steal the life out of Baekhyun, like he wants to share his soul with Baekhyun, like Baekhyun is the life that keeps him alive, with all the love and strength and pain and roughness and affection. 

 

~

 

“Please, my Light. We can do it. Just say yes. We can start again, anywhere you want. I’ll do anything to make you happy.” Chanyeol pleads, adamantly hopeful as they sit on the benches on the platform, waiting to catch the last train back to the city. There are few people about, the sound of the waves in the distance a looped track in the night. They are exhausted but inside them, unspoken, is an almost animalistic esurience for more time with each other. 

“I know but…I can’t Chanyeol. I just can’t-“ 

“Why? Do you really love him? More than you have ever loved me?” Chanyeol sounds collected but Baekhyun knows well this is when he is trying to contain eruptive emotions. He pushes down the emotion that arises in him, pushes it back down his throat and tells himself it’s not that. It can’t be  _ that _ . There is not a time he has feared Chanyeol and there will never be. 

“I – I don’t think I’ll love anyone more than I love you, Park Chanyeol,” Baekhyun sighs tiredly, candidly. 

“But today was just one day, Chanyeol-ah. Today was a day in the many that will hopefully come in our lives. Today we pretended we are the people we were before everything happened, before all the mistakes that were made. But to be together in the present, as Chanyeol and Baekhyun who are conscious of the past and the present, and want a future together still, it is a different thing, my Delight. And loving you requires a strength I don’t possess, Yeol. Not anymore.”

Perhaps it is not the guilt of cheating on Yixing that has been weighing him down so heavily. Perhaps it is not how overwhelming Chanyeol’s sudden reappearance was. Perhaps it is not all that has happened in the past and how it has affected the future that has been drowning Baekhyun lately. Perhaps it is the realization that he loves Chanyeol. He loves him enough to know that the only right thing for them is to let each other go. 

And Baekhyun is afraid of the things Chanyeol will do in his name. And Baekhyun is afraid of how easily he can turn a blind eye. 

The decision is cemented when Chanyeol and Baekhyun sit in different seats, in different compartments of the train. They came home together as the lovers they had been and are going back to the lives prior to their love as strangers. 

 

~

Baekhyun scans the card Doctor Oh had given him a long time ago, the gates creak open, Baekhyun is granted admission and the car rolls up the drive way. The lawn is meticulously manicured and the trees are large and lofty with plentiful shade. There are different species of flowers growing in the hedge and a large gargoyle fountain sprays sparkling water intricately. A large Victorian building lies beyond the fountain, made of white stone and brick. Baekhyun would have mistaken it for a wealthy home owner’s house, like himself and Yixing. Had he not known that this is the mental institution Chanyeol has spent the past two decades as a patient. Or so Baekhyun thought.

He wants to know – he needs to know – why Chanyeol has been released. 

_ If _ Chanyeol has been released. 

Because Baekhyun knows with sickening certainty, that Chanyeol would run away. 

He needs to speak with Doctor Oh, the man who has reassured him that Chanyeol is getting better, Chanyeol is recovering and Chanyeol is still in the institution. In fact, he had made his annual visit this past summer and Doctor Oh had told him that Chanyeol was still admitted but Chanyeol has been out for at least four years and Baekhyun is confused. Why, just why has Doctor Oh lied to him? 

He does not have much time, it is the last Sunday Chanyeol will be teaching the twins and he does not want to see Chanyeol again – or his resolve might break – in addition to that, he told Yixing that he wants to go for a drive, clear his mind for a while. He promised he would be back in time for dinner and he intends to keep that promise, he does not want to keep lying to his husband, he feels as though he’s gaining a century of guilt for each word of lie he tells. 

He parks his car in the drive, as he usually does each time he visits. The first year Chanyeol had been gone, Baekhyun did not visit. Nor the second. Or third. It was the fifth year he managed to pluck his courage and drive out to the hour-away institute. It had been an attempt at closure, his life falling back together, with the healing hand of Yixing, and his music career looking north. It was an attempt to close that gaping chapter, the one that stole the life from him. But then he met Doctor Oh, Chanyeol’s doctor, the one who kept him informed of his past lover’s state and progress. 

He had almost missed Doctor Oh, he was on his way out as Baekhyun was honking maniacally at the gate, pressing the buzzer to be let in but getting continuously denied access. Doctor Oh had scanned the gates with his authorized card and he had stopped when he was level with the driver’s side of Baekhyun’s car.

The tall handsome man had told him that he would have to make an appointment or come with an authorized person before he could be granted access to the institute but Baekhyun had screamed how he just wanted to know how he was doing, he did not even want to see the patient. And when Baekhyun had mentioned which patient he wanted to know about, Doctor Oh’s jaw had slackened. 

_ “So  _ **_you_ ** _ are Baekhyun, huh?” _ He had asked. He had invited him for coffee and since then, even though it went against doctor-patient confidentiality protocol, Doctor Oh informed Baekhyun about Chanyeol and how he was doing. Because the only person, the only thing Chanyeol talked about was Baekhyun. The only stimulus for Chanyeol was Baekhyun. Doctor Oh even asked Baekhyun if he were a witch, Chanyeol seemed so beguiled by him. 

“Hi. I need to see Doctor Oh Sehun.” Baekhyun says. He does not recognize this receptionist. Maybe it is because Mina does not work in the institute around this time of the year, he always visits in the summer. 

“Do you have an appointment?” She asks in a practiced, polite but clipped tone. Baekhyun groans. He does not have time to bicker with a receptionist. 

“Look, I know what room he’s in. I just need to pop in for a few seconds. I’ll be out before you know it.” Even as he says it, he knows there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that she will let him in. But he needs to make sufficient commotion for perhaps an audience with security or any kind of racquet that might draw anyone nearby and hope and pray that one of them may be Doctor Oh.

“Sir, please leave.” She looks pointedly at the door. 

“Please, I need to-“

“It’s okay Sara, let him in.” Baekhyun is startled at the sudden appearance of the man he has spontaneously come to see. 

The receptionist, Sara, pauses uncertainly, most likely questioning why Doctor Oh is foregoing proper visitors’ procedure but she nods and gets back to her work as Doctor Oh leads Baekhyun to his office. 

“I saw your car come in. You know, you could have called.” The tall, slender, aged man says as he shuts the door and gestures for Baekhyun to sit down. Baekhyun feels foolish. 

“You probably figured out by now that Chanyeol has not been here the most recent years, right?” Doctor Oh murmurs ruefully. Baekhyun is not even surprised that the doctor knows his reason behind the visit. 

Baekhyun clasps his hands together, he is not saying a prayer but he looks he may be as he stares at Doctor Oh, intricate dread coiling in his stomach, layered ropes that makes his insides twist. It is almost palpable, tangible, like vapour in the air, the certainty that whatever the Doctor is about to tell Baekhyun, will be execrable. 

“Yes. I can’t stay long so please, don’t tell me you can’t tell me why. Tell me, Doctor Oh.” Baekhyun thinks of a million jokes he could tell in this moment, stall and keep this moment of ignorance a little while longer. But his hands dig into the arms of the leather chair, his throat has been smeared with sand, his left leg, uncrossed now, bounces up and down in a symptom of anxiety and apprehension Doctor Oh does not fail to notice. 

“We found out around the time it reached his first decade here. It was around the time he found out that you come to visit too, surprisingly.” Doctor Oh sighs. He looks more weighed by the years than Baekhyun has ever seen him, more than his usual gravitas. Baekhyun does not want to know the things the Doctor has seen, the things he’s heard and dealt with. His anxiety coils tighter in his stomach, a viper waiting to release its venom, as Baekhyun wonders what could have a Doctor who’s witnessed the most melancholic and haunting of cases, appearing as though he has gained more wrinkles in minutes.

There is a grandfather clock in the doctor’s office and as the minutes keep ticking, Baekhyun can’t but feel the urge to smash the clock. He feels he is a stone lying heavily in the calm before the storm and he can’t but yearn to know quicker; what is it that Chanyeol and the institution are hiding from him? 

“There’s no way that I can soften this for you, Baekhyun, whether you still care romantically for Chanyeol or not, whether you care for him as a human being or not. I do not need my qualifications to tell you, Baekhyun, that everyone has their varied lifetime right? That everyone is born and eventually…

“Chanyeol has cancer. And he’s dying.”

The silence speaks. The anxiety that has been rising in Baekhyun like a scream breaks and crescendos, the most awful macabre crescendo he has ever heard and it’s all inside him. His ears are ringing and either his heart has stopped or it’s beating too fast for him to feel.

“They gave him five years and got released on parole, with an approximate two years left to live. But miraculously he’s still alive, five years later.” 

 

~

Baekhyun knows he should not be driving in this state. Where the road looks a giant dismal gray blur and the trees on either side are pressing in and the world is shrinking around him. Doctor Oh couldn’t stop him when he bolted from the room after a complete minute’s silence. He needed to get away. The grandfather’s clock was too loud, the echo of the crescendo in his mind was shattering his ear drums and the old Doctor’s sombre but benign, empathetic look was too much for him to bear. 

Baekhyun thinks he should turn right back and check himself into the institution. This pain will drive him insane, if he does not die from it first. 

Baekhyun wonders if he really is conscious. His world is tinged with the surrealistic horror of nightmares. It feels too warm and too cold and his hands are shaking on the wheel, his huffed breath is fogging the windows of his car. 

Chanyeol. 

Chanyeol is dying. 

He’s meant to be dead. 

And like a stealthy unforgiving snake, the thought weasels into his mind. 

_ “An eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth. A life for a life.”  _

Glassy eyed, empty soul, that’s what Ahn’s mother had hissed at Baekhyun with vitriol at Ahn’s funeral. And the thought circumvolves in his mind like a looped circuit,  _ this is karma _ . It’s too early for Chanyeol’s life to end. He only just got it back. Baekhyun feels the unfairness at his core, it makes him let out a wounded feral sob. But – but Chanyeol took a life, a life that was yet to be lived and fulfilled. 

_ A life for a life _ .

Baekhyun remembers the irreversible stony cold in Ahn’s eyes, as he held him and tried to staunch the blood. He’d pumped his chest and breathed in air to him but naught can give life to a body whose soul departs. And Chanyeol smiled at him, his eyes possessing the same glassy texture as Ahn’s dead ones, his hands lathered in the crimson of Ahn’s life, his grin macabre and full of demented love as he said,  _ “My Light, he won’t be disturbing you anymore.” _

_ “Baekhyunnie, what’s wrong? Why won’t you talk to me?”  _

_ “I already called the ambulance, they’re coming to take him away.” _

_ “Do you feel safer now?”  _

Baekhyun had only stared then, unable to comprehend as Ahn’s body grew colder in his arms. He stared at Chanyeol, trying to figure out who the boy sitting before him was. Who was this stranger? Who was this stranger who could kill so coldly? And speak so warmly to Baekhyun with the life bleeding out of his victim? Ahn had never been a danger to Baekhyun. The only crime he’d ever committed was trying to befriend Baekhyun. 

_ “You’re mine.  _ **_You’re mine_ ** _.” _

_ “Are you not happy, my Light? I did it for you…all for you…”  _

Horror spread like cyanide inside Baekhyun. Chanyeol looked so earnest, his eyes watering at the prospect that Baekhyun does not approve of his…action. His eyes filled with haunting innocence and a dire appeal for Baekhyun’s approval. But how could Baekhyun approve of this? He searched for the humanity in Chanyeol’s eyes, the shred of remorse of concern for Ahn. But it seemed all Chanyeol could see was Baekhyun and not the innocent life that has passed at his hands. 

_ No _ , Baekhyun had thought,  _ no there’s something wrong with Chanyeol _ . 

By the time the ambulance arrived, Baekhyun had passed his bloody hands over Ahn’s eyes, inculpating, unforgiving eyes tearing something in his insides. They had both been taken into custody. Baekhyun gave his statement and testimony against Chanyeol. 

And still after all that, he promised to wait for him. Baekhyun realized; there’s a vital piece of humanity missing from his soul, being able to love Chanyeol even after all that. And he still to this day is in love with a murderer who’s now dying. 

Baekhyun hears the horn blaring at him from his side almost too late. 

He swerves into the next lane, twisting the wheel sharply. He is almost colliding head on with an on-coming car before he swerves back into his lane, missing death by a few centimetres. The sound of the horns around him jolts him out of his daze. With shaking hands, he keeps driving but he is fiercely lucid. He has to – he needs to see Chanyeol. It feels as though he’s racing against an hour class that’s almost out of grains, now that he is aware Chanyeol has defied death and is most likely living on borrowed time. 

He does not think he will be able to leave Chanyeol’s side once he seems him again. He needs to feel him safe in his arms. He suddenly feels a well of sadness fill up in him as remembers how much he’d tried to push Chanyeol away. Chanyeol and Baekhyun…they are both twisted in the same way. If Chanyeol is missing a piece of humanity then Baekhyun is missing it too for being able to love a monster. They belong with each other. Baekhyun should have never allowed Yixing to love him. And he should have never loved Yixing. He is sure, with all his miserable heart that he loves Yixing. But not in the way that blinds him, overwhelms him, makes him feel like he is one of the few whose stars align. He should have waited. 

When Yixing had got close enough to Baekhyun and their relationship eased into trust and comfort, Baekhyun realizing Yixing’s benign and gentle nature, he opened up, fraction by miserly fraction, to Yixing about his past. He told him about his family, about how he grew up with music, seeded into him from birth, he told about his village and he told him about the boy he loved with every piece of his broken heart…But he’d never told Yixing the boy’s name and he – 

He told Yixing the boy was dead. Despite the promise, that’s what Chanyeol had seemed to him for a while. When he told Yixing that, he believed it himself. Chanyeol was never coming back to him…so he may as well have been dead. If only he could have kept the feelings and memories dead too. 

How will he tell Yixing? How will he leave Yixing?

And in the end it is not Baekhyun who is strong enough for both of them but Chanyeol. Because Chanyeol should know without a doubt that Baekhyun would stay with him, had he known he is dying. But Chanyeol didn’t tell him. He let Baekhyun make his choice. He accepted it. 

“Idiot Park Chanyeol!” Baekhyun screams in his car, alone. He is almost there, he is almost home. Chanyeol should still be with the kids. And then he can... He does not know what he’ll do. He just has the unshakable urge to see him, touch him. 

 

~

The house is so quiet. He should be able to hear the sounds of the piano from the music room, even from the foyer downstairs. He feels the eerie mocking silence he once felt twenty years ago when he knocked on the Parks’ door with diffidence just to find his love on the floor with blood on his hands. Baekhyun dispels the feeling like waving a hand through mist. 

_ This is not that _ , he tells himself. 

Maybe they have all gone out, maybe they are watching something or playing in the back garden or have promenaded into the woods behind the house. But first he decides he will look around the house to confirm their presence or lack thereof. 

The living room is empty, so are all the guest rooms. Something…something is amiss. It could be the recalled memory of the cold blooded murder from two decades before that has left him shaken or it could be mankind’s sixth sense for detecting disorder, like sharks scenting blood in the ocean from miles away. 

It is the kitchen that sunders his breath. 

Lying supine on the island is two motionless bodies, bonded complexly in ropes and silenced by silver duct tape. Jian and Jun. The car keys slip out of Baekhyun’s hand, jingling on the marble but he barely hears the sound, horror makes him deaf. 

He walks towards the twins with the feeble uncoordinated steps of an inebriated man. He reaches out a hand, placing it on Jun’s chest, right above where the rope binding him wraps around his chest and he feels for a heartbeat. He doesn’t feel a thing. He frantically turns his nephew on his side and tries to push up the ropes binding the small boy’s hands behind his back. He feels nothing on Jun’s wrist but just as he’s about to remove his hand, numbed by desperate disbelief, he feels a strain, a struggle for blood to course through constricted vessels. The breath of relief almost makes Baekhyun shake but it’s not over, he has to check for Jian’s pulse too. Jian’s pulse is stronger than Jun’s. Baekhyun tries to shake awake, slaps their cheeks lightly and desperately shouts their names but to no avail. He slowly, as painlessly as he can, removes the tape over their mouth and even unconscious, the children wince.  

He is undeniably relieved by the fact that his nephews are alive but there is panic and fear running him into a frenzy inside, the person responsible for this could still be inside his home. And Yixing and Chanyeol, he has not found them yet either. 

He pulls out his phone and dials the emergency number. He’ll come back for the twins, he must find Yixing and Chanyeol, he needs to see them unharmed. 

Baekhyun is sure this is not a robbery. There is not a thing out of place. He images there would be more chaos inside the house if thieves had ransacked his home. Baekhyun tries to traipse as stealthily up the stairs as he wishes hard in heart for the emergency line to be picked up. He is cracking the library door open when a female voice comes through the line. 

“Hello, this is 112. What is your emergency?” 

A pungent iron smell hits Baekhyun. He does not hear a sound inside but that smell, oh gods, that smell. The lady on the line asks him what his emergency is again but Baekhyun can hardly swallow, let alone speak as he pushes the door open and his eyes meet a nightmare of nightmares, a scene conjured from Hell itself. 

“112, what is your emergency, Sir?” 

“M-m-my – my h-husband has b-been m-m-murd-murdered,” Baekhyun stammers in a small voice. He does not trust his eyes. They are failing him. His eyes are failing him, this can’t be real. 

But he looks down as a viscous liquid reaches his feet at the doorway. His husband’s life, it trickled out of him and now it forms a river of blood in their library. Yixing is slumped over his desk and Baekhyun cannot see his face but he can see the blood dripping from his torso, the white shirt he had worn this morning is now an indigenous ruby. 

Yixing…Baekhyun thinks in despair, Yixing never stood a chance against such an attack, being a haemophiliac. He should have been home sooner but it should never have happened to Yixing. He should have never gone to see Doctor Oh. He shouldn’t have, oh gods – 

Baekhyun drops the phone, even as the lady on the line repeatedly asks him for details, he can hear her but he can’t understand what she is saying. He dashes through the blood, a choke ripping from his chest as it registers to him that he is stepping in his husband’s blood. Yixing’s blood. Yixing who loved him. Yixing who healed him. Yixing who nursed and protected him. Yixing who had kindness and warmth and life and humanity to fill oceans and flood over lands. 

Yixing who is now cold as Baekhyun pulls him back from the desk, so cold and sticky with his own life force. And then Baekhyun sees the knife. Lodged inside his husband, the black hilt and small stainless steel gleam of what remains of the blade buried inside him. 

Baekhyun stares in horror. 

_ No, no, no. No, no, no.  _

He does not want to jump to conclusions or let suspicion run away with him but the position of the knife, he can’t help but remember how  _ identical _ it is to where Ahn was stabbed. Even though it’s too late for Yixing, he does not pull out the knife, in fear that whatever chance at being rescued would be irrevocably ruined if he moves the weapon. 

Yixing’s skin is so pale, a deathly white sheet pulled over muscle and bones and the veins are already blue and leeched of life, a network of prominent dismal blue mapping Yixing’s cold flesh. He shakes his husband’s shoulders, though he knows Yixing is coming back but one can hope – one can hope hard and pray and offer oneself to the devil if so be it – if only he can get Yixing back. He does not look into Yixing’s eyes. He can not. 

He gently lays Yixing back and passes his bloody hands over his husband’s eyes, his own eyes tightly shut. He despises this déjà vu so much. With each passing second, there is something inside of him tearing open. It feels as though a glass has shattered inside his heart and the shards are ricocheting inside him and piercing him everywhere. Drops of blood drip into the pool already on the floor as they fall from Baekhyun’s shaking hands. The sound echoes in the deathly silence, fills the eeriness with a macabre testimony. His feet are soaked in blood, it is already drying on and coating his feet, his husband’s essence is drying on and coating his feet. 

There’s one more person, one last string of hope. Every fibre of his being is chanting repeatedly, praying and hoping and demanding;  _ please don’t let it be what I think it is, please don’t let it be who I think it is, please don’t let it be what I think it is, please don’t let it be who I think it is… _

There are only two more places to check inside the house; the music room and the master bedroom. He is already on the second floor and the most sensible thing would be to check the music room. But Baekhyun is so afraid. He forces one leg in front of the other, one step after another but the effort is taking a toll on him the way a mountain on his back might and the short distance between the library and the music room feels as though it is the distance between mountain ranges. 

As he stands outside the door of the music room, he curses the sixth sense and the seventh and he hopes fiercely that the metallic tinge in the air is originating from the library behind him. He instantly burns with shame. 

The door opens with the silence of an assassin. His feet sticks to the marble as he walks, bloody footprint stamped on the floor, the way his and Chanyeol’s footprints used to be imprinted in the sand. He sees Chanyeol, sitting upright at his piano. Baekhyun wonders why he has not turned to Baekhyun, Baekhyun’s entrance was not discrete. Each step takes him closer and he wonders why Chanyeol is so  _ still _ , he’s never  _ that _ still. 

It is like there is a vacuum in the room, so silent, so still like a picture. It seems the instruments have never made a single sound, like no sound has ever penetrated the air in this room and house is holding its breath, like Baekhyun is. 

“C-Chanyeol?” Baekhyun puts a hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder. No response. 

“Chanyeol?” Baekhyun says louder, firmer and shakes the taller one’s shoulder slightly harder. Chanyeol slumps forward. The keys make a jarring sound and Baekhyun almost jolts out of his skin in freight. The broken note continues as Chanyeol presses against it. Baekhyun is alarmed. 

He pulls Chanyeol up by the shoulders, trepidation tightening his muscles as he fears Chanyeol shares Yixing’s fate. He sees it immediately, the knife buried in Chanyeol’s chest. The first drop of warm blood drops to the floor, drips on Baekhyun’s feet. Chanyeol’s eyes – they are closed. But his face is pulled into a peaceful smile. He looks…he looks so serene. 

And his hand…his hand is connected to knife lodged in his chest, lodged in his heart. The blood gushes out and streams steadily to the floor. Baekhyun drops Chanyeol in livid horror. The tall cooling body collapses to the floor, prone. Baekhyun hears a sickening tearing of flesh and tissues and muscles and organs. The tip of the knife protrudes from Chanyeol’s back, completely wedged inside. A small piece of paper flutters to the floor from the piano. Baekhyun can only stare at it, paralyzed by every emotion he has ever feared and emotions he never anticipated he would ever feel. He hears sirens wailing in the distance and his eyes flit over the paper, blood already soaking its edges and swallowing the words. 

_ ‘If not you then no one, if not now then never. Let’s meet again in the stars, my light. Next time let’s be supernovas together.’ _

 

~

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks a million to the mods for their tolerance and hard work! I hope this does not disappoint you, dear prompter. And thanks to my one and only A who unwittingly kept me motivated.


End file.
